Our final addition to our family arrived yesterday, March 20 at 5:35pm. What a sweet blessing she is weighing in at 5lbs 11 oz she's our smallest baby yet. She was about 19.5" long. If you ask me, she's absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way. I wanted to write that down so I could remember how I felt in this moment, knowing full well I won't always feel this way. Like when she has me up all night, or when she talks back to me, or when she tells me I'm the worst mom ever, I know all of those things lie ahead of me.
As much as I don't want to relive my pregnant or labor, I do want to remember, so I am writing it down and blogging is the best way for me to do it since I'm terrible at journalling any other way. (it is a known fact that I'm not so great at this either)
I knew shortly after having Elliot that I wanted another baby. As much as I swore Elliot was the last, I felt bad that he was so much younger than Donovan and wanted him to have a friend like Clara and Donovan have in each other. Although we got pregnant sooner than anticipated, it was nothing short of a blessing. If I had waited, I may have changed my mind, Elliot is a little more of a challenge than I thought he would be and the thought of having another one like him scares me a little. So it's a good thing I got pregnant before Elliot started walking or it may not have happened.
The pregnancy was pretty difficult. Besides being sick and puking all while moving and turning my children's lives upside down, (moving to a small town was not fun for them at first) I spent a week in the hospital with a terrible kidney infection that spread to my blood which was one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me. I felt the sickest I have ever felt, I was alone in the hospital without my family and I was worried about the health of my poor baby. A few weeks after this I had another kidney infection. I was just extremely grateful that it wasn't septic and was treated with antibiotics, out of the hospital. I may have felt awful, but at least I was feeling awful at home!
My immune system must have been really low because I seemed to always have something this pregnancy. Between colds and flus, it was a tough winter in our house.
I have never been so big with any of my other babies, it was crazy how much weight I gained. I felt like a beached whale, none of my maternity clothes even fit.
I was having braxton hicks contractions starting at 20 weeks or so. If only they actually meant anything and helped me when labor came along.
This baby was a crazy active baby. Which was nice to know she was healthy but she kept me up all night with her crazy karate chops and constant hiccups.
At about 36 weeks I started having random small amounts of bleeding. It was happening every other day or so, but wasn't of any concern. Then at 38 weeks exactly, I lost a large amount of blood. It was quite scary for me, but I figured it was what it was and we would keep a close eye on it but my midwife wanted to meet me at the hospital to check things out. We packed up the kids at 8:30 pm on the 19th to drive to the hospital where my mom met us to take the kids to her house. Carol checked the baby and everything seemed fine. Then she proceeded to tell me that we would have to talk to the ob on call and see what she would recommend. That's when she dropped the bomb...she said chances are it would be induction or I would spend some time in the prenatal unit being monitored closely. I thought for sure I would just go home that night. My heart sank when I realized I wasn't going home, regardless of what I wanted.
So I transferred rooms to be induced. I was completely in shock. I was supposed to go on a field trip with Clara the next day and I had just promised her it was going to happen. I figured what could happen between her going to bed and waking up the next morning. Ha! She was not happy when she woke up and my mom told her I wasn't going with her to the science center.
Just before midnight they hooked me up to an iv and monitors while I waited for the baby to come. By about 4am the contractions had picked up and they set up the room for delivery. At about 4:30, they stopped. They upped the drugs and we waited. I had contractions all morning that were pretty painful, but nothing that got me anywhere. I got in the bath and felt some relief but by noon I had gotten nowhere. I was 4-5 cm maybe and I was exhausted. My midwives were headed home to rest while another came to take over. At this point I was so done. It's so discouraging to work so hard and get nowhere. I opted for an epidural so I could get some rest.
As my contractions picked up, babies heart rate would drop really low. So, in came the next ob on call to tell me what she recommended. (so much for any rest, but at least I wasn't in so much pain anymore)
The next step was to fill my uterus back up with fluid in hopes it would relieve some pressure on the baby. Thankfully it worked and she settled down a bit. I managed to get a little sleep, which was nice. It was hard not to watch the clock and think I should have been home by now.
Then the babies heart rate started dropping again. I thought I was doomed for a c section. My midwives were talking on the phone and I heard Wendy tell Carol she was going to check me in an hour or so to see how far I'd come.
At that moment I told her I was pretty sure the baby was coming. Wendy told Carol to head over and hung up. She checked me and sure enough, the baby was coming out. She didn't even have a chance to put gloves on. She paged a nurse to come help. I pretty much laughed Lydia out. I did not push for a second, in fact I was almost trying to keep her in cause I wanted Carol to be there. She didn't make it but was there a short time after.
Lydia had the cord around her neck, but also around her body in various ways, which is what was causing her to heart rate to drop. Every contraction was compressing the cord against her body and restricting blood flow. She came out all purple and covered in vernix but was crying almost immediately. We will never know what caused the bleeding, but we can only go by the assumption it was the best thing to do at the time. We have no way of knowing what would have happened if we left it but we know shes safe and sound with us now. I do know it was amazing to finally hold her in my arms. Nothing is greater than that feeling.
I don't know what is considered a "normal" labor but I always dreamed of having a different labor than what I have experienced. All 4 babies have been OP (heads turned=worst back labor ever) and 3 of the 4 have had almost identical labors. I think this was my hardest labor yet, but Elliot's would be a close second. I guess I can officially give up on the dream of a labor without back pain.
I am extremely grateful that labor is over and everything ended well. It was about 8 hours of hard labor but it felt like a lot longer than that. Thankfully the pushing part always comes easy to me. It's a great way to end a terrible experience and start a new one. I'm grateful that I had 3 amazing midwives who were the best support anyone could ever ask for. I'm grateful for my husband who isn't the most involved with my labors, which is exactly how I like it. He sure steps up when we get home. He takes such good care of me and the kids. I'm thankful he has the week off to help me so I can focus on my sweet new baby. I am so glad my mom could take the day off work to watch the kids for me, I have to admit I panicked a little every time I thought about where the kids would go.
I can't say enough how much I love snuggling our new baby. I love holding her and hearing her grunts and sneezes and her regular occurring hiccups that have carried on even after being born. I love how excited the kids were to welcome her to our family. It truly makes me realize I am the luckiest mom and I have everything I could ever hope for.
