Micah is Born

December 26th, after our Mielke family Christmas, we left Bennett, Ashley and Jonah at my moms to sleep for the night.  I teared up saying goodnight to Jonah, knowing that the next time I'd see him, he wouldn't be my baby anymore. 

On Friday morning, December 27th we headed to Glencoe for my induction with Micah.  After we got there, the nurse checked me and I was at 5 cm dilated!  I had made alittle progress on my own since my last appointment - progress without pain!  My backup doctor, Dr. Leino was the first one there that morning so she tried to break my water - thinking that if my water broke, that maybe I'd start contractions on my own without needing the pitocin drug to get things started.  She tried to break it but didn't know if she got it since she didn't see any big gush of water like she was expecting - she didn't even get a trickle. (Even after Micah was born, there was barely ANY amniotic fluid - the guess is that I had a small leak and have been leaking for awhile and didn't know it.  I had been wearing a pad daily for a few months by this point, thinking it was discharge or pee - whoops, might have been a tiny bit of fluid instead!). At 11:00am they started the pitocin IV since I was not contracting on my own much at all.  At 12:00 noon I was checked again and was at 6cm so the pitocin was working.  Because of that, I asked to get the epidural scheduled right away.  I wasn't in much pain at all yet but, knowing what was about to come and the fact that I was at 6cm already, I knew I needed to get that done asap.  By 1:00pm I had my epidural in and was definitely contracting more.  Around 2:00pm I was getting more and more uncomfortable, even with the epidural.  My nurse checked me and I was at 8cm.  Very shortly after this though, the contractions were getting so painful that I was needing Mike for support and after about 10 minutes of very regular, painful contractions, I made him get the nurse in there.  I had an epidural, I wasn't supposed to feel any of this!!!  My nurse checked me and I was at 10cm and ready to push!  They figured that I went from 8-10cm so fast that the epidural couldn't keep up at all!  Ahh not was I was expecting!  My doctor, Dr. Knodel, and Dr. Leino both came in my room and quick got the bed switched to a delivery bed and I began pushing.  I had 4 sets of contraction pushes and out he came!  It's a boy!!!  Micah John was born at 2:47pm weighing 6 lbs 14 oz and 21 inches long.  He's a beauty and looks so much like my other kids.  Micah is definitely my smallest baby, almost 3 lbs smaller than Jonah.  This doesn't surprise me that much though because I only gained 10 pounds the whole pregnancy.  

Because of the terrible cold and flu season, our hospital unfortunately had strict visitor restrictions in place.  No kids under the age of 5 were allowed to come visit.  This meant that Jonah wouldn't have been able to come see the new baby.  If Jonah couldn't come, I thought it'd be kinda weird to let Bennett and Ashley still come.  So we made the decision that as long as baby and I were both well, we would only stay the required 24 hour hospital stay and then leave to get home so they could meet their new brother.  I did video call them from home later that night so they could see us. 

The next day, December 28th, Micah was doing well, had all of his tests and got his circumcision and Mike and I were able to bring him home.  We got home about 5:00pm and the big kids were excited to meet their new brother. 

Micah's name:  Mike and I had been struggling the entire pregnancy to pick some good names.  For a girls name, we were not agreeing on the name we picked of Libby.  I loved Libby, but Mike thought we should call her Elizabeth and then we could call her Libby for short.  I didn't like that because Elizabeth didn't flow with the other kids names.  And for the boy name we were stumped for so long.  Every name we'd throw out as an option, the other would veto it.  I saw Micah in a list of baby names on a website but I figured Mike wouldn't like it so never even mentioned it to him.  One night Mike and Ashley we on a website and throwing out names and he came to Micah and I told him how I liked it but never mentioned it to him and that was pretty much it - we found a name.  Yes, it's similar to Jonah and to Mike but it flows nicely with the other kids names and fits with our last name.  So no, we did not name him after Mike, which is a question we have gotten.  And no, we aren't following the Bible and having a Nahum next either. :-)  

Look how teeny tiny he is!

Yes, Micah has a tinge of reddish hair.  Some days it looks very red, some days it look more browish - it all depends on the lighting in the room and the pictures.  I'm very curious to see if the reddish sticks around as he grows or if he'll turn dark like the rest of us.  My other 3 kids were all born with brown hair, which turned blonde, which then turned dark as they grow.  

Last Christmas I bought the Santa jammies on clearance and gave them to the kids during the Christmas season.  When Micah came home from the hospital in his Christmas clothes too, I had to get a picture of them all.