Felix Birth Story

 Felix Joseph Blood was born at 1:15am on July 26, 2024
6 lb 8 oz
18 inches

Now here's the long version with the graphic details:

I started having Braxton Hicks contractions about 10 minutes apart around 1pm on Tuesday the 23rd. I didn't take them too seriously, because I had been having them fairly often for a few weeks, and it was still 2 weeks before my due date. I was dilated to a 3, but that was not unusual for me. Whenever the contractions got closer, I would lie down, and it would space them out to about 20 minutes apart. I was supposed to go to the hospital once they hit 6 minutes apart. 

This went on all evening. The contractions got to about 8 minutes apart when I was trying to cook dinner, so Aaron tagged me out so I could lie down. I decided to go to book club that night figuring I could lounge on Jill's couch as well as my own. Whenever I stood up, I would trigger a contraction, but then they would space out again. Every hour or so I would get a painful contraction, but most of them were minor. Before going to bed, I texted Joanna and Rayne asking them to keep their phones off silent just in case they needed to come sleep at our house and be there for the kids when they woke up. 

I slept for an hour, then was woken up by a painful contraction. I started timing the contractions around 11:30pm. They ranged from 8 to 15 minutes apart, but were all painful now. At 1:00am, I woke up Aaron saying that we should go in because of how intense the contractions were even though they weren't meeting the 6 minute criteria. He got up and started grabbing chargers and toiletries to throw them in the bag. I stood up and immediately got hit with the most intense contraction yet- and this one didn't stop. I was in a non-stop contraction until the baby popped out. We both started calling Joanna... then Rayne... then Joanna again... then Stephen and Claudia... no one would answer. I managed to walk down the stairs to the car, and we decided to drive to Stephen's house two minutes away. Aaron pounded on Joanna and Rayne's window to wake them up and send them to our house. Apparently their phones were turned on, but they are just very deep sleepers. By this point I was bracing myself between the handle above the door and the center console and offering up some very panicked prayers. It hadn't occurred to me yet that we might not make it to the hospital. I wasn't thinking anything very coherently at this point- but at the same time, I wasn't screaming or feeling like I might black out. I figured it was still a long way to go to get the baby actually out. 

My water broke as we left Stephen's neighborhood. A minute later, I told Aaron to pull over because the head was coming out. Aaron turned off onto Camino Hopa and sprinted around to the passenger side where I was sitting. I had pulled down my pants to reveal a whole head by the time he opened my door. He was face down, and I remember seeing a head full of hair. Aaron slid my chair back, grabbed Felix's head, and caught him as Felix slid on out. It was over in a matter of seconds. It was 15 minutes from the time I got out of bed to when we were holding him in the car. 

Felix was crying in a healthy kind of way. The umbilical cord wasn't wrapped around anything. I held him close on my skin, which was actually a bit tricky because of how slippery he was. Aaron and I looked at each other with wide eyes and had this funny moment where we realized that everything was fine, and we had no idea what to do next. I remember saying, "I feel a lot better now!"

Aaron called my doctor's emergency hotline. They recommended calling an ambulance, but that seemed unnecessary. I could tell that neither Felix or I was in an emergency condition and that we could make to a hospital just fine. We asked if we should go to the hospital with the birthing center up in Tucson, but they advised us to go to the Sahuarita ER first to get checked out since the full hospital was a half hour away. While Aaron was figuring all this out, I gave the umbilical cord an experimental tug, and the whole placenta plopped out. We stopped by our house to grab another towel and then drove to the ER. Aaron ran in and told them that his wife had a baby in the car and that we were out in the parking lot. They came out with a wheelchair for me, and I awkwardly transferred myself with my lap full of baby and placenta to the wheelchair. They checked us out, clamped and cut the umbilical cord, and got us into a state where we could drive ourselves up to the normal hospital. I was able to walk out of the ER, which was pretty amazing to me - I had epidurals for all my other babies and am used to not being able to walk for quite a while. 

The first picture taken of Felix!

Aaron and Felix in the Sahuarita ER

We checked into the hospital and went through all the same initial checks. I was able to talk my way out of getting an IV. The nurse asked if she could get me a snack around 5:00 am, and I realized I was STARVING, and also that I no longer had gestational diabetes! Cocoa Puffs Cereal has never tasted so good. 

I was hoping to convince the staff to discharge me that evening if everything looked good, but unfortunately they require babies to stay for 24 hours for monitoring. It ended up being way longer than that. Time is so weird at the hospital. We kept getting woken up by nurses checking on me or Felix, but then when I was eager to have the last people come check us out so that we could be on our way, it took hours. Aaron and I passed the time video calling family members and texting "guess who had a baby in the car at 1am" to people. My mom had by far the best response. She was at Aunt Audrey's house getting ready for Alpine and was going to fly to our house on Aug 1 to be there the week before the due date. I knew she already had a migraine from travelling and stressing over the women's retreat at Alpine, so I knew I had to break things to her slowly. I texted her saying "Hey, call me when you wake up. I have an update!" She called thinking I had new logistics about the induction that I was working on scheduling. I had the camera pointed at Felix. She started hyperventilating and generally freaking out that she wasn't there to help us, and this was before she knew the car part of the story! She wisely sat down with Dad and braced for the story. Her gasps and general reactions were priceless. She also lobbied hard for us to change his name to Brigham once she realized he was born on Pioneer Day. 

For those who are wondering, Aaron did a wonderful job cleaning the car. He went out in the hospital parking lot and used up an entire package of baby wipes to get the worst of it before it could bake in the heat. He worked some magic on it when he went home, and now the passenger seat is visibly cleaner than the driver side! 

Aaron ended up going home that night to be with our kids since there wasn't much to be done at the hospital. He brought the kids with him in the morning thinking that we would all drive home together (in theory, they didn't let us leave yet). It was a great family bonding moment.

Annie's first time holding Felix. She cannot get enough of him. I frequently have to banish her from touching Felix so that he can nap. 

Elliot volunteered to be late to pool party day at summer camp to get to meet his little brother. Elliot is SO sweet with Felix. He loves watching him and commentating on his little faces and adding sound effects when Felix is flailing around. 

Isaac was quite concerned that Felix was trying to eat his pikachu shirt. They have since become buddies. 

Aaron took Elliot and Isaac but left Annie with me to have a fun hospital date. We obsessed over Felix, shared my lunch, and watched some shows on the iPad until they finally discharged us around 1pm. 

I'm writing this a week after Felix was born. Reflecting back on it, this birth story is the one that every pregnant woman is terrified of, but I think that emergency C-sections or bad reactions to epidurals are both worse and more common. I am very grateful that there were no complications and also that it was the middle of the night so that I didn't have an audience of friendly neighbors there for the delivery. My recovery has been much faster than it was with the other births. Overall, I feel much less traumatized than perhaps I ought to be. 

We had to wait and struggle for a couple years to get pregnant with Felix. He seems like such a gift! We are already all so in love with the newest addition to our family. 

The Rest of Summer

With only a couple of weeks to spare, we finally settled on a name for our baby number four! We made the kids play hangman to figure it out. 

 

Felix Joseph Blood. We settled on Joseph right away- It is Aaron's middle name, and you can also hit so many strong individuals from every book of scripture. Felix was much harder. I campaigned hard for Calvin, but Aaron vetoed that one when he realized it meant "little bald one." Felix was another one that Aaron vetoed after being the one to suggest it originally because it sounds kind of like "he licks blood." We had an ever expanding list of names we were mulling over. Aaron kept generating new candidates by chatting with AI and inputting all the qualifications for what we generally like in names. Felix kept coming up, but Aaron kept being against it for several weeks. I think it was the Knells who finally convinced him that no one is going to call him "he licks" instead of Felix. I'm so glad we got to a name that we both love instead of settling for something that neither of us hate!

I managed to haul my very pregnant self to a few outings for the kids. Here we are actually bowling this time! It was the most high tech bowling alley I have been too. Each player takes a selfie, and the screens put your face into the animations while you bowl. 

Elliot and Annie love drawing faces on watermelons. For a bit we also had faces on our bananas. 

Big fruit heads over here

Elliot got really into paper games for a while. Mini mini golf is a fun one where you flick your pencil through obstacle courses you draw. We also have a game where you fold paper in half and use the lead to fold cannonball dots onto the other player's spaceships. 

Isaac and I got to hang out while the older kids went to Be Well summer camp at the clubhouse. 

Annie's group was finding plastic bugs hidden in the field with those little kid bug catcher kits. Isaac and I were walking by when a little boy came up to the leader and said "I caught a real bug!" It turned out to be a TARANTULA HAWK which is a type of wasp with a sting that registers at level 4 on the Schmidt pain index scale. They are not aggressive, but definitely not a bug you want to be handling!

Isaac and I did a mini dinosaur camp to have something special for him. We read pages from our dinosaur encyclopedia then listened to songs about the dinos we were learning about. I was pretty proud of this stegosaurus craft.  

Knells, Raleigh Edition

We stayed with the Knells for a few days before and after the beach trip! They are some of our favorite people in the world. It was great getting to see their new house in Raleigh and getting a taste of their life there. They live in a beautiful community where everything is so lush and green! We got to go to their farmer's market, for a short hike, and to the pool. 

 

These girls spent the first day ignoring each other and whining about being bored, but eventually hit it off. The boys were content playing board games and trashing the toy room over and over. 

Alexandra took us to some really cool sunflower fields! It was a huge park area with lots to walk around and see.

Unfortunately, my body was very unhappy with the proposed "walking around" activity. I started having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions that were getting really close together whenever I was walking. I caught my breath on the hammocks and then had to chill on the Knell's couch for the rest of the day to slow things down. I was 36 weeks pregnant and having the baby 4 weeks early in North Carolina was a daunting proposal. I am so glad we dodged that bullet!

I wish we had taken a group picture! Thanks for hosting us and feeding us yummy food!

Family Pictures

Megan took some awesome family pictures!

Our last family picture as a family of 5. I love these people so dearly.

Here's the full group picture. What a wonderful group of people!

Grandma Blood asked Megan to photoshop in James' family. I thought putting them on a cloud was a nice touch. She went the extra mile and made our family green (a nod to the classic family picture when teenage Aaron was nauseous and green during the photoshoot and puked right after). Note some face swaps as well- Seth with Little Aaron and Jacob with Rayne. 

 

Myrtle Beach

Our family summer trip was to the Carolinas to visit the Knells and go to a Blood family reunion at North Myrtle Beach!

Having kids helps me to appreciate the airport floor art.

Ready to fly!

Annie's teeth have been falling out left and right over the summer! This one was particularly entertaining. We called it her Nanny McPhee tooth. 

Mom Blood treated us to an awesome 14 bedroom house! All of the Bloods except for James and his family were there- 41 people total! The upstairs loft had a foosball table and table shuffleboard. The main level had a pool table and theater room that was mainly inhabited by the teenage cousins. 

Mary brought some kind of game that resulted in Megan doing a lot of pushups. She rocked it. I love hanging out with the Bloods. We spent lots of time catching up, playing games, and watching Aaron fix Megan's website for her new family picture digitization business. 

We got a room with two queen beds. The positions we found our sleeping kids in was quite amusing. Isaac and Annie both move a lot in their sleep resulting in interesting snuggles/tangles, and Elliot was always right on the edge trying to be as far away from them as possible. 

The backyard had a pool and hot tub, which mysteriously turned green for a day. Luckily the pool guy got it fixed up quickly because we were using that pool every day!

Annie and little Catherine really hit it off this beach trip. Catherine and Elise took it upon themselves to introduce Annie to the world of Taylor Swift, and some sweet dance parties ensued.

The windswept joy of the beach! I didn't take my phone to the beach, so I'm glad Claudia braved it to snap some pictures. We were a short walk from the beach next to a big resort. It was more crowded than we were used to since it was the 4th of July weekend, but still not too bad. There's nothing better than a pack of cousins hanging out at the beach!

We were there over the 4th of July. There were firework shows all up and down the beach! Our crew had glowstick lightsaber battles underneath the fireworks, which was delightful until Ethan and Elliot got a little too violent, and I had to take a wounded Elliot back to the house. 

We also played with some streamers and poppers in the parking area. Thanks, Grandma Blood!

One of the proudest moments of my life was when Catherine, Bree, Ethan, and Eli came up to me in the kitchen saying that they had caught a big bucket of sand crabs and asking me to fry them up for them. We did this in previous years, and it was delightful that my young padawans are now expert sand crab hunters!

Foraged Fry Cook action shot

They were a hit! Eli in particular couldn't get enough of them, which made me proud since I know he's a picky eater. He was very taken with the whole process. 

We had a pretty constant churn of food to keep 41 people running! Luckily there were 3 fridges and 2 mostly working ovens. 

One day the oven repair guy came in, saw the scene of the full Blood crew eating lunch, and turned around and left without a word. We had to hunt someone down to send another repair guy out because we used both ovens most days.

It seems worthwhile to document our meal planning spreadsheet. 

Here's a very cute boy pretending like he eats meals.

One lame part of trip is that I got my lab results back and found out that I had gestational diabetes. I had to figure out how to get a glucose meter while on vacation. Luckily, Michael and Ally Rollins have some experience, and they were able to give me a demo on how to use it. The internet and health-conscious Bloods gave me some good tips on how to keep my blood sugars down. It was fairly tragic avoiding ice cream and treats while at the beach. I eventually figured out what to eat and was a pretty good diabetic by the end of the week!

A bunch of us went to putt putt golf one evening. Here's our "scared of dinos" face

On our last night we went to Barefoot Landing, which is a place I went with my family quite a bit growing up. They have built it up a lot!

I had to take this picture of Claudia, the biggest purple fan I know, in the Purpleology store. 

Our family outside of the rocks and crystals store. 

The next morning was Sunday. Most people hit the road early, so the few of us that were left got to hustle to empty out the fridges and clean out the house before checkout time. We went to church in North Myrtle Beach where we had the most entertaining Sunday school lesson I have ever attended. The teacher was an utterly delightful elderly southern woman who told the story of Ammon with alternating humor and wisdom. I was so glad we stayed for 2nd hour of church.

Girl's Trip

Some friends of mine planned a girls trip to Gilbert! 10 of us ended up going. We rented an Airbnb with a pool. We drove through a very intense dust storm on Friday afternoon and got some In-N-Out for dinner followed by an evening swim with a hand stand contest. The next day we made flower crowns to wear to Medieval Times. 

Hannah is the master of all flower crowns. 

The big secret of the night was that it was Analisa's birthday weekend. She didn't know that we signed her up for some bonus things at Medieval Times. When they called her up for a knighting ceremony, she assumed that we were all getting a turn, and she was first alphabetically. It was great watching her enthusiasm and getting to watch her reaction the moment when she realized this was for her birthday and that she got to keep the cool light up sword.

I was very pleased with the half chicken they fed each of us! It was an impressive show. Lots of sword fights, smashing lances, and horses doing impressive things. 

We had one more surprise for Analisa- a Godzilla themed afterparty! It had become an inside joke at playgroup that Analisa knows so much Godzilla lore. Chelsea cleverly borrowed all her kids' Godzilla toys from her under false pretenses, and we managed to set up an awesome scene and arrange it so her car got home last from the show for a surprise entrance. This was the main part of it, but there were Godzilla action figures all over the house.

Andrea and Chelsea made this awesome cake with melted jolly ranchers to make fire blasts. 

We had another late night of chatting and snacking before leaving to drive straight to church on Sunday morning. It was an absolute blast. 

Mt Lemmon Camping

In June we spent a lovely two nights at Spencer Canyon campground on Mt Lemmon with our friends the Beuses and the Ashcrafts. The weather was great and the company was greater. 

 

We snagged two campsites close to each other and had plenty of space for our 3 families. The site next to ours was closed because of the danger of trees falling or something, so we had lots of space for the kids to roam without bothering other campers. 

Elliot presenting his concoction of ashes and tree sap mixed with banana that a toddler dropped on the ground. Note the wicked glint in his eye- he kept trying to put it where someone would sit on it. 

We brought Elliot's schoolwork for kindling. Tossing pages into the fire was a big hit. Colton is right to be scared- later he touched the hot metal and got a gnarly burn on his hand. 

When your s'more turns out looking like a pig snout, you have to do a lil' photo shoot before chowing down

Annie tried to sleep in this hammock the first night. She wasn't bundled up enough and got so cold that she retreated to the tent at 2am. I love her face in this picture- just absolutely exasperated with all the boy energy.

These three boys are going to preschool together in the fall!

Filthy and happy. We love to see it. The kids roved all over the campsite. We kept having to retrieve the 3-year-olds when they wandered out of sight. 

We had some good game time while the babies were sleeping and with the grown-ups after the kids went to bed.

Our main adventure was hiking Marshall Gulch. 

Elliot achieved enlightenment on this here stump.

This is what enlightenment looks like. 

Best view in the woods

I sincerely believe that kids belong in the wild like this. They all loved exploring and climbing around. 

We had prepped our newly potty trained Isaac that when we are hiking, there aren't bathrooms around, and sometimes you have to pee on rocks. He misinterpreted our instructions and started peeing in his pants on some rocks in the middle of the trail. It made for a significantly less comfortable rest of the hike for him! Never fear, he has since mastered this ancient art.

I'm glad that we bugged a fellow hiker for a group picture!

Not too shabby for a lady with a 7 month pregnant belly!

We stopped at Windy Point Vista on the way down for more rock scampering. I love that my family loves camping as much as I do!