On January 3 at 8:52 pm we added those extra two feet to our home. At 7 lbs 11 oz and 21 inches Keen Zora Dorsey-Lee has entered the game.
She was born, like her sister, at Shady Grove Hospital. With midwives and a doula in attendance. I went into labor the morning of the day we would go in for an induction. We labored at home all day and got to the hospital 4:30. After making slow progress all afternoon suddenly, just seconds before strider was going to get dinner, my water broke and shit got real. I jumped from 4 cm to 9 cm dilated in what seemed like minutes. I wanted to push and we got ready. Unfortunately Keen had one commonality with her sister: the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck--three times. So as she descended her heart rate dropped dangerously low at each contraction. And this only got worse when I started to push. The midwife called in an OB consult to ask for a vacuum or forcep delivery--recognizing the baby wasn't safe in there much longer. The OB said our only option was to only push every other contraction and let the baby stabilize and maybe we could avoid a c-section. In fact, he thought surgery was our only choice. Strider and I were barely aware of this as we focused the biggest challenge of the birth: not pushing. So the midwife and nurse got down to it and let me push when Keen stabilized. Well about 20 minutes later Keen shot out. Literally. No one expected it and no one caught her. She caught air. I'm not kidding. Air. Everyone but me gasped. I knew it was my last push. I'd had enough of this waiting crap. I decided to make it count. Everyone laughed and congratulated me as a "really great pusher." I thought they said that to all the girls. Turns out not. But understand I paid for it in stitches and burst blood vessels.
Leading up to her birth Strider and I talked a lot about our expectations and thoughts about this new baby girl. We only have experience with one kid: Moxie. Our range of options were pretty limited. Moxie is a great kid--but we didn't want a clone of our first born. We hoped for a little person with her own scene. Maybe she would be blonde! Maybe blue eyes! Maybe shy! Maybe she would be the opposite of our two year old and, until the birth of KZ, our only center. Well, it turns out Keen is her own person. Not in opposition to Moxie but someone completely new and someone we already love more than we imagined.
Here's a picture of our two very different and very wonderful girls.
