Makena Grace is born!

(I'm back-dating this to Tuesday, so forgive me if I mess up the verb tenses).

Makena Grace Robinson was born Tuesday, March 16 at 2:00 PM. She weighed 7 lbs 2 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.

Lena was again quick to dilate... not as quick as last time. But she did jump from 7 to 10 cm just as fast as she was from 6 cm to 7 cm. Although we warned everyone and the doctor knew it, too, we (Lena) still caught them off-guard.

Julie and I were focused on the machine showing contractions and heartbeats. Lena or the baby would shift every so often, and we'd have to readjust the band that measures the contractions. At the end, Lena thought baby was shifting again... the baby had, but she was primed and ready to come out. [FLASHBACK: With Karis, I could she part of her head when they checked her. It was about the size of a quarter and they advised Lena not to do a practice push. We had to wait on the doctor to arrive. Upon doc's arrival, Lena pushed 4 times in about 12 minutes for Karis to emerge. ] Once again, Lena had arrived at 10 cm. They again enforced the "no push" rule. They called her doctor so she could rush from office to hospital. She apparently rushed a little too much and was pulled over for speeding (20 MPH over posted limit). When she explained her patient was at 10 cm and waiting, the officer advised she wasn't going to be able to assist if she were in an accident from speeding but left her off without a ticket.

Doctor arrives and is prepping at the foot of the bed. Don't know who said something to make Lena laugh (probably her hilarious husband), but she started laughing. The crowning that began even more than the quarter size of Karis, began to grow more. With each laugh, the baby was coming out. We had to add a "no laughing" rule until doc was ready. When she got the green light to push, Makena joined us on the first push. Lena almost literally birthed her from laughing. Reminded us of Abraham's wife Sarah in the Bible who was laughing as she didn't think she could be pregnant at 90 yrs old. They named baby Isaac which meant laughter. But we couldn't find a female equivalent that we liked.

Upon further baby name research, one of the top three names ("Makenna") had a variation in spelling that had a meaning we liked. Makena means "happy one" in Kikuyu (a tribe of Kenya). We were sold on it but cautiously took our time to make sure it fit. We can both attest that there is more pressure when you go into the hospital without a finalized name. I still like that we didn't go in with one name picked and that we were open to a selected few, but it was harder than I thought to narrow down. We even opened search up again.

I could tell a difference in the baby being born earlier in day. It seemed much easier on us both. Karis was born at 10:30 PM or so. It seemed like the doctors and nurses kept us up later with tests and such.

Sadly, Karis wasn't allowed into the hospital to visit her little sister. We didn't get the memo that no one under 16 was allowed up because of the flu scare. My mom and c0-worker Yukie worked really hard to get to the hospital so we could get a family photo at the hospital. But Grandma and Yukie both got to meet the unnamed baby at that point in time.

Thankfully, Lena was experiencing no pain afterwards all around. She did incur some sore plumbing apparatus as a result of a baby that sucks hard. We do need to take Makena to the pediatrician before the weekend as she's lost more than the acceptable amount of weight (7% vs the allowed 5-6%) and is showing signs of being jaundiced. She has still been spitting up fluids that had surrounded her and she ingested because perhaps she didn't have it forced out with many labor pushes. Prayers for healthy and quickly recovering mom and baby are appreciated.

We've posted photos and videos on Facebook (you don't need account to see them). Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=55148&id=1483001948&l=837f3e92cb. We'll likely continue to add photos there, so bookmark it if you'd like.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for your continued prayers. We have a lot of learning and adjusting to do. We're very grateful that Grandma is here to help for another week.