Now, I am not quite sure how to minimize this section so that it is not all displayed on the screen, so bear with me as this will probably be a long one. 
We arrive at the hospital at a few minutes 7am. Brian jumps out of the van so fast he forgets to unlock the doors so that the large man with the wheelchair can get to me and Brian is waivering back and forth about whether to walk around to the driver’s side and hit the button. He was worried about locking the keys in the car as he did that once and was a pain to get a locksmith and such. My mom said she wouldn’t leave the car until he was back in. I manage to unlock the door and fall into the wheelchair. There is a woman standing just inside the door and she grabs the chair and practically runs to the Labor & Delivery on the 4th floor. Mom is coming along behind all the while I am having very intense contractions and wondering how much longer do I have to sit as this is VERY uncomfortable. We get into the triage room and I decide to potty one more time before getting into the bed and change into the gown at the same time. The staff start asking me questions to get me into the system and they quickly realize that I am not really able to answer them as quickly as they need to get through so they say that anyone can answer the questions. Glad that both Mom and Brian were there to get through all that. They check me as soon as I am in the bed and I realize when she enters that everything feels very soft and squishy. I figured that had to be a good thing since when the doc had checked me every other time it was very tight- even the day before! So she calls out that I am at 8 cm!!! I say Hallelujah! Thank you God! I had been thinking that if I was a 4 or 5 cm that I would be in trouble as this was really intense and strong! I was soooo glad. Mind you we didn’t want to be travelling while I was at that point, but hey it all worked out, right? I began to think, maybe I wasn’t crazy afterall for attempting this!? This was shift change and so the staff was trying to figure out who was going to take over and Dr. D was in transit and they didn’t know if he was going to make it in time. They called in the doc on call from the practice and sure enough?! It was Dr. B- your remember, the one that I wrote about earlier? I thought to myself, Oh you poor thing- to get thrown in here with me?! Thank goodness that Dr. D showed up shortly after and took great care of us. He took charge well and remained calm even when the nurses were having trouble locating the baby’s heartbeat. They kept replacing the belt on me since it wouldn’t register right after a couple of times. He claimed it was head compression and that he was not concerned since they had a couple of good reads.
I was amused that the staff kept asking me to move my leg here, hold my hand in this position, and scoot over. I was incapable of complying with any of their requests as all my energy and focus was completly towards the contractions that were coming quickly and VERY strong. I didn’t have naseau anymore since we had gotten out of the car, but quickly felt the urge to push. The staff checked me again and said I could push at any time that I wanted. I felt something coming out at one point when I was on my side and they check and guess what the surprise was?? Not the baby ladies, and not the water . Anyways they cleaned me up and had me sit up and they put my legs up into the stirrups which went under my calves. Was not expecting that. I was thinking your feet went in or something, but it really gave me a shorter canal that I had to push through. I was looking for my Mom to be in my face keeping my eyes open which I didn’t want to do. I kept wanting to fall asleep in to some kind of coma in between the contractions. When I closed my eyes I would loose focus and mess up my breathing. They did end up putting an oxygen mask on me to help get better oxygen and breathe more effectively. I was also looking for Brian to be at my back pressing my hips through the contractions. At one point someone was tilting my hips just right and it felt sooo good! I was like ‘who is doing that?!’ And it was Valerie, my doula! She had arrived and I didn’t even realize it. She helped Brian know what was normal through the process and reminded us of the relief techniques to use. Time seemed to stand still while I was going through this. When it got to the pushing part someone pushed me forward and they had me hold my breath and push like going to the bathroom to get her out. The doc kept saying push right here and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about until after about 3 pushes he said ‘push down and up towards the ceiling’ and for some reason that made sense to me and it worked. It took about another 2 pushes and she popped out! As she was crowning he popped the bag of waters which relieved a lot of pressure. There was another pop when he pulled her shoulders out and I was in disbelief! He held her by her jaw line at the back of her head and she dangled there like a cat in silence. She was just looking around kinda taking roll of who all was in the room. He dropped her down on my stomach and Lucy lifted her head to look at me. I was so amazed and couldn’t believe what had just happened and how immediate the pain had ceased! I smacked her a couple of times on the hiney and asked her if she had anything to say… she had a few cries that she let out, but nothing like the previous two screaming the moment they came out ear pearcing! Amazing, amazing, amazing. That is all I can say. I am so grateful that the Lord allowed me to complete this task and how he comforted me throughout. To God be the glory!!
BTW- Here we are at week 4 and Mama and baby are doing well. Over the thrush and nursing well. Lucy is quite efficient nursing about 10min a session and down to about 5 sittings a day. She also sleeps about 6-9 hours a night! AMEN for that. I have to say that God has been so generous to me considering I am still chasing after the other two munchkins. What great enthusiastic helpers they are!
Hello all! Momma and Lucy are good. Actually we are better than good…we are great! I am so thankful for the grace God bestowed upon us.
Here are a couple of one week pics of our Lucy. It is amazing how fast they can change.
So you want to know how it went I suppose?! In one word – AMAZING! I can’t say that enough when it comes to describing this experience. I have to say that I was quite skeptical that I was really in labor Tuesday night since I had had several other evenings where I had contractions for 2 & 1/2 hours or so and then it would die down. I’m not sure at what point I was convinced that I was really in labor other than when it was time to leave for the hospital and even then I was asking Brian to really time the length of the contraction. Funny now that I look back. I found the whole evening quite entertaining. I kept laughing at a number of different things. The first was at about 10 pm when I had had some strong contractions starting at 9pm that halted me while talking a bit. I came upstairs to find Brian’s bag on the bed packed and he was trying on his clothes to lay out for the trip to the hospital. All the other nights, he was not convinced, but this one for some reason he was He had asked me if I really couldn’t talk through the contractions or if I was just you know…I laughed. The next amusing thing was how exact the contractions came. I slept from about 10:30 to midnight without interruption. At midnight they were coming every 10 min, but I could sleep through in between. I found it quite odd that I was told to sleep in between and I thought ‘how is that possible?’…well apparently it is. Somehow I fell right back asleep and when the contraction would come I would reach over and ’smack’ Brian awake to apply pressure to my lower back to offset the pain. I realized a few nights earlier that ’smacking’ was necessary as I had asked him to time contractions on another night and when he turned out the light after one contraction and he was OUT. I asked him to start timing and he was like ‘did you say something?’ ‘huh?’ A little late at that point
Now it is 2 am and the contractions have changed to 7 mins apart still sleeping in between. At least each hour I would urinate and would have a couple close together- that was intense! At about 430am Brian and I started talking that maybe about 5am we would see another change to the 5 min apart ones and that after about 30mins of those we would call his parents to come over to our house to take care of the girls. Well, I went to the bathroom again and hurried to the bed to have 3 contractions really close together and VERY intense. It is about 5am and my Mom, sleeping downstairs, heard me moan or something and ran upstairs to check what was going on. She times them and they are 1-2 mins apart. Brian asks ‘what about the 5min apart ones? Can it just skip that?’ I was wondering that myself. The rule to get on the road from our DR and Doula was contractions 5min apart for an hour. My Mom replies ‘apparently, it can’, because now they are coming steadily at 2mins apart and I am quite amused that it skipped that. Brian calls his parents to get them up and ready and to come over and his Mom was already in the shower. She had awoke at 5am having a feeling that something was going on and so decided to get ready. How amazing is that!? So Brian and Mom packed the car with our labor bag(tools for laboring in the hospital) and our hospital suitcases. Brian was of sound mind to have me wait for a contraction before heading downstairs to leave so that I wouldn’t be laboring halfway down as I felt the best position was on all fours. Good idea since I had another as I came to the bottom of the stairs and the in-laws were there just as planned! It took me about 2 contractions to get into the car all the while Brian’s Dad saying – ‘Son, better get on the road now!’ I found it so amusing that it was taking 4 people coordinating to get me out to the car, remove a car-seat, and not forget a bag or something.
Now we have a 40min car ride to get to the hospital. Somehow…it only took 30min to get there! The car ride was pretty uneventful other than the nausea and steady contractions and me praying that I don’t get the urge to push while riding. My Mom told me later that she was reviewing child birthing in a car in her head!! Okay, please allow me to finish out this story in another post since it getting long and I need to get to bed! I don’t want to spoil the naps that I got to take extra today!! More on that later too.
