When we found
out we were expecting our second girl,
we were overjoyed. What a blessing! The kids were so excited at having a second
sister!
My pregnancy
wasn’t uncomplicated. We were faced with
the prospect of a c-section more than once, and our faith in God’s plan,
regardless of the outcome, was something that pulled us through! We were very relieved when my previa resolved
itself. We were relieved, once again,
when she flipped from a frank breech, to head down! We truly felt the prayers of family and
friends throughout our entire pregnancy!
At 35 weeks,
my blood pressure began to go up. There
were no other complications, but as it continued to creep up, my doctor decided
that she wasn’t comfortable with me going past my due date of April 10th.
At 37 weeks,
I was finally considered fullterm! I would head to my weekly appointments,
hoping there had been some sort of progress made that allow my induction to go
smoothly. Every week, there would be no
change, but I refused to get too discouraged.
She was following the rest of her siblings…not wanting to arrive before
her time!
My induction
was scheduled at my 38 week appointment.
Unless she decided to arrive earlier, she would be born on April 9th! I was very excited to have an end in
sight. My 39 week appointment showed
some progress, and I was finally measuring 3cm and 60% effaced! It was a relief to know that my body was
moving in the right direction!
That last
weekend before my induction was hard! It
was filled with choir practice, church services, Easter egg hunts, some last
minute cleaning….and not much rest! John
could see the toll on my body and I was able to get some much needed rest after
the Easter service on Sunday. He was a
bit nervous that I would go into labor, and he would have to deliver a baby at
home….more than once he asked me if he thought we should go to the
hospital. I wasn’t having any
contractions, and I was feeling a lot of movement from the baby, so I always
said no. I could deal with the nausea
and tiredness…and I had my end in sight!
I woke up at
5am, Monday morning. We were expected at
the hospital at 6:30am, and I wanted to have some quiet time and didn’t want to
be rushed. Our good friend, Amy, arrived at 6am to watch the kids for us. It was such a blessing to know that our
children were in good hands!
We arrived on
time and brought to our room. We settled
in and then the waiting began. The nurse’s shift change was at 7am, so it
wasn’t until the new shift settled in that we met our nurse, Chenoa. She was very nice and made us feel very
comfortable. She had read of our history
and knew this was our 7th baby…and we told her there were only a few
things that we didn’t want to happen.
First, I did not want to be close to transition and have that frantic
feeling that no one was in the room with us. John did not want to deliver a
baby…and I didn’t want him to either! Second, I did not want to have to wait
for the doctor to arrive. I wanted the
staff to be prepared and know that once the intensity of my labor heightens, it
won’t be long, and they are to have called my doctor before I reach full
dilation. She was very assuring and put
us at ease.
Ha…more on
that later!
Around
7:45am, the iv was placed and I was hooked up to some fluids. My doctor came in
around 8am, checked me and broke my water.
I hadn’t made any change since my appointment the week before. I was still sitting at 3cm.
The Pitocin
began dripping around 8:20am.
The
contractions began very mild. They were
immediately regular, but way too manageable.
I labored sitting in bed, figuring that maybe by sitting, gravity would
help things along.
My nurse
would come in every half hour or so and see how I was doing. She would ask me my pain level, and I was not
at the point of having to even concentrate through the contractions. On a scale of 1-10, I would say, maybe a 2 or
a 3.
At 10am, she
decided to check me to see if I had made any progress. She said that I was still 3-4cm. I really think that at this point, she began
to wonder if this labor wouldn’t be as fast as we had warned her about.
For the next
hour, things continued about the same. I
could tell that the contractions were getting a little stronger. John would check the monitor, and I was in a
very good pattern, but still missing the intensity that we knew was necessary!
Around 11:30,
I asked to be checked again, and I was measuring about 4-5cm. Since the contractions were still very
manageable, I began to think that maybe I would have a long labor without the
intensity I was used to. I thought back
to my previous labors. I had never labored sitting the way I was sitting. I had always laid on my side. It was at that time, I decided to change my
position and proceeded to lay on my left side.
I felt an immediate
change in the contractions. I felt a
little more pressure, so I knew that I had made the right decision! I could tell the baby was moving down into a
better position.
Around noon,
things really began to intensify. The
nurse was having a hard time registering the baby’s heart rate and my
contractions weren’t showing up on the monitor either. She had to depend on me for how the labor was
going!
The first
time John heard me give a low groan during a contraction, I heard an excited
‘YES!’. He knew that once that begins,
it won’t be too much longer!
Around 12:30,
I knew the contractions were doing more than they had all morning, so I asked
the nurse to check me. I was now at 6cm,
and the baby had moved much lower. At
this point, John told the nurse that she had better call the doctor. Her response was…we’ll just wait and
see. She had been warned early on that
once I hit a certain point in labor, that my babies come quickly. But I think
she was thinking that because the morning had been so slow, that this labor
would be different.
It wasn’t.
Right after I
was told I was at 6cm, I had 5-6 back to back contractions within 10 minutes. Earlier that morning, I had told John that
when my labor gets really intense, I would ask for prayers and
encouragement. When I asked him to pray
for me, he did. When I asked him for
encouragement, he said “Baby, you’ve done this before! You can do it again! Just think, within the next hour, she’ll be
here!” To which I responded, “DON’T SAY
THAT TO ME!!” In my mind, there was no
way I could continue breathing through these contractions for another HOUR!!
I urgently told John to get a nurse because I
needed to push. We were once again in
the situation of being completely dilated and were the only ones in the
room. John did not want to deliver the
baby by himself!
He jumped up,
screamed HELP!, ran across the room and yelled into the hall….”We need a
nurse! She needs to push!”
Then the
scurrying began. My room was filled with
nurses prepping things for delivery.
This is when they finally called my doctor!
I rolled onto
my back and said….I need to push NOW!
That is when
the nazi nurse got right in my face and firmly told me to BLOW IT OUT! To which I sternly replied….BUT I NEED TO
PUSH NOW! She then proceeded to blow in
my face with such force and annoyance, John was surprised I didn’t slap her.
The nurses
told me that Dr Yang was 3 minutes away and that they wanted me to wait. Again, in a situation that we did not want to
be in!
The moment Dr
Yang arrived, one of the nurses asked her if she was going to put her scrubs
on….her response was ‘no, just gloves!’
I immediately
started pushing and within one and a half pushes, out came Millie! John wasn’t able to get the bottom of the bed
fast enough to see her crown! She was
out before he knew it!
One of my
concerns with delivery had been about the placenta. With my last birth, my dr had to manually
extract it, since the cord began to unattach and it wouldn’t deliver. Thankfully,
due to the red raspberry leaf supplements I had been taking since 32 weeks, it
was not even an issue!
Millie came
out screaming and was immediately laid on my chest. She was beautiful! She weighed in at 7lbs14oz and 20 inches
long. She received an 8/9 on her APGAR
scores!
After giving
her a quick once over, they handed her back to me for some skin to skin
contact, and I was able to nurse her for about an hour!
I have been
blessed to have extremely easy recoveries after having babies. Once again, I did not tear or need any
medications afterwards. After she received her bath, I was able to get up and
take a shower and get dressed into some comfy pajamas.
We named
Millie after my great-grandmother Amilda.
Her middle name, Taylor, is after the Chinese missionary Hudson
Taylor.
Our family is
complete….and we are so thrilled to have been able to end it with a pink
caboose!
Millie was
able to meet her brothers and sister on her birthday and they remain completely
smitten with their baby sister!!
Since coming home, they just want to keep coming over to her to just stare at her because she is so beautiful. The boys are having a hard time playing, because they can’t stop thinking about her! I have been abundantly blessed and am so incredibly grateful to God for my family!
