And Then We Were Six

I’ve written many blog posts in my head while I nurse in the wee hours of the morning. Being a multitasked with four kids, nursing is a bit of a shock to the system in that it hasn’t been an easy process for me or Little Miss T to learn and we have to focus all our energy on making it work. She is two weeks old today and I would say the two of us are in a better swing with her eating, praise God. 

I have now worked out a small series of FAQs I can answer but will go in small chunks because, well, I am in a life stage where finding a window to shower feels like an accomplishment. I know many of you can relate. 

Here is a brief birth story, not too many details, but it is still a birth story. :) If you don’t want to know details, just look at the pics and move along. 

My due date came and went without so much as a contraction. Depressingly, even with all the birthing ball and natural gravity positions I would try to bring on labor, I started to feel better and better, less achy, more like my body had decided to hold off on getting this baby into the world. 

Our doctor’s comfort level with overdue moms was that the baby needed to make a debut on day 12. On day 11, as my body was still showing no signs of labor, I was sent in to the hospital for an induction. I had never been admitted to a hospital and was kind of dreading the whole process. I checked in on Sunday evening and I was hooked up to monitors and given Ceravil which was supposed to help my cervix prepare. Jon and I got some sleep during the night as we knew it was a big day ahead.

About 6:00 am, I was started on Pitocin, a drug to bring on labor. Again, not my favorite idea and it really limited how much I could move but we agreed as we also wanted the baby to come into the world on day 12. Once I was in the hospital, it couldn’t go fast enough for me. Contractions started hard and fast, when they started, they came about 3 minutes apart. I don’t know why but I imagined a break where I could feel totally normal during contractions but because of severe back pain, I didn’t get much relief between contractions. Probably the funniest part of the morning happened when Jon got a phone call from WBCL to do an interview for a radio station about the BAM Symposium happening and he answered the call and I moaned/yelled, “Tell them your wife is in labor!” Needless to say, Jon didn’t do the interview. :)

Around 11:30, I was offered an epidural or I needed to wait until mid-afternoon. Don’t hate me for all you strong natural woman but I happily received an epidural. :) I still wasn’t dilating much and was still feeling enough pain with the epidural that I couldn’t rest and was not dilating. A few hours later after very little progress, they gave me some kind of amazing booster and I was able to sleep for 30 minutes. I woke up from the nap and had gone from a 3 to an 8 dilated. As I was being considered a c-section risk, the nurses and doctor were so happy with this…And then I stalled and stayed between an 8-9 for a few hours. The epidural was wearing thin and no one wanted to give me more as the staff wanted me to feel pain to push against when it was time. It was what we wanted to and I kept Tiger in my mind as motivation as I knew the c-section recovery would bar me from holding an 18 pound wiggle bug. I finally moved to a 10 and the nurses were delighted; however, I also stayed at a 10 with no desire to push for several hours. Finally, it was concluded I should start pushing, regardless of how I was feeling. 

I pushed for about an hour before I asked for another bit of a booster to the epidural as I was bordering on despair. I know, so dramatic but I was having little progress. After about another 30 minutes, the doctor came in, announced, “We are doing this! She will come!” And praise to God, more pushing later, her little head of dark hair came into the world and the doctor wiggled the rest of her body out. I had my eyes shut and felt her come out but didn’t want to think I was done if I wasn’t when I felt her on my chest. 

Because we were doing skin-to-skin time, they didn’t take her away for over 2 hours. We didn’t know weights and measures and we also changed her mind about her name, so she was nameless but we didn’t care, we were overwhelmed with thankfulness.

Poor little girl was so beat up from her entrance into the world but she seems like an overcomer. :)

Thank you for all your prayers. We are overwhelmed by God’s goodness to our family. 

 

 Coming up: “How does this experience compare with adoption experiences?”