Adam Jeremiah Donovan

Wednesday March 7th at midnight I started to have contractions. Some were 20 minutes apart while others were 2 minutes apart. This went on for 2 hours! The next day I went to my doctors appointment. He told me he would be out of town for the weekend so if I was at a 4 then he would just take me back now and break my water. He then says to me "sadly you're only at a 3. So if you want me to deliver your baby then you are confined to the couch." I have 3 small children, no one is confined to the couch with kids like that. He went on to say "so I guess I'll see you Monday when you deliver your baby or I'll just see you on Thursday for your appointment," at which I responded by saying "I'll see you Monday." So then for the rest of that day I had contractions off and on. When Spencer got home from work he found me in the kitchen getting food ready and he immediately said "What are you doing? Get on the couch! I only have 2 more hours to meet productivity and get a bonus." So I went on the couch...the next day Spencer texted me and said he got productivity and I was a go to have a baby. And yet not one contraction all day. In fact I felt so great all day long. Which I was a little upset about! But on Saturday the contractions started again. By Sunday afternoon I was a little nervous that I wouldn't know when to go to the hospital. All day I kept telling my kids I might be going to to hospital and then everything would stop again. Plus we still didn't know who exactly would come watch our kids and we still didn't have a name for our baby. When we put the kids to bed Hope just proclaimed "but I can't go to bed, you haven't called anyone to be with us when you go to the hospital tonight!" 30 minutes later Spencer called our neighbor who promptly came to sleep on our couch. When we arrived at the hospital my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and sadly I was still only at a 3. I was terrified they would send me home and then I would have a baby in the car. Luckily the doctor on call said to keep me. My labor progressed but very slowly! Finally at 4:00 in the morning I reached a 5 and I was able to get an epidural. Those meds are magic when they work properly. With my other kids my epidural has never quite worked on my left side. But this time it didn't work on my right side. So a few hours later they got another guy in to give me more meds which made my entire left side numb until the afternoon but my right side finally started to not feel. My doctor walked in the room around 8:15 a.m. I told him "well you said to wait until Monday to have a baby and this kid waited for you." He just laughed and then said "well let's have this baby." At 8:22 a.m. our baby was born. He just looked like this little round ball. We still had no idea what to call him and I was still in disbelief that we had another kid. That afternoon Spencer and my dad brought our kids to meet their new baby brother. Noah was so excited to sit by me and look at him. Noah hadn't spoken much all day even though we usually can't get him to stop talking. Suddenly very quietly Noah looks at the baby and whispers "I love you baby!" It was one of my favorite moments that day. We feel extremely grateful that my pregnancy went so well especially with having a few seizures mixed in and that our baby has been so healthy. We ended up calling him Adam Jeremiah Donovan. We called him Adam for no specific reason I think it just sounded good and Jeremiah is after one of Spencer's ancestors.  On the way home from the hospital both of us became scared to tell Hope that we didn't name him Jack. So when we got home we let Hope hold him and then said "well we decided to call him Adam..." Hope's eyes swelled with tears so Spencer quickly added "but Hope you can call him Jack if you want." She immediately stopped crying. However she's never called him Jack and only calls him Adam. Our kids love their new little brother. Noah especially loves him, he constantly wants to hold him and and he's so gentle when he comes up and rubs his head. Our kids are always talking about how Adam is dreaming about when he lived with Jesus. Today Rhett said "Mom, I think that Adam is thinking about when he was just living with Heavenly Father, he was really happy then. And I think that when we lived with Heavenly Father with Adam before we were all born that we were really happy."

The hospital gives siblings ice cream sandwiches when they come to see their new baby

Noah was excited to show Adam his "Big Brother" sticker