The Birth of our Baby Girl

I think I will always remember the birth of our second child, but may want to forget many of the events surrounding it. It has been a stressful time for us because of the pending move up to Raleigh.

I was fortunate during this pregnancy to not have experienced many of the symptoms that a lot of women experience during their pregnancies, but every pregnancy is different and there were some obvious differences between my first and second. Specifically, I remember a few days in November 2011, not too long after I found out I was pregnant, where I really had terrible morning sickness. In hindsight, I suspect I was dehydrated because it only lasted a couple days, but I was incredibly woozy--to the point that I had to really concentrate when walking in order to not walk into walls and I threw up a few times. This really caught me off guard because the worst I ever felt while pregnant with MVP was as if I had been on an amusement park ride and was dizzy/uneasy. I developed a new respect for women who have HORRIBLE morning sickness....especially those who have morning sickness throughout their entire pregnancies. I didn't have heartburn this time around like I did last time, but my feet did get very swollen. After sitting at my desk working for a couple hours, my feet would look like sausages and it was pretty uncomfortable to walk around on feet that felt like they were stretched to capacity. I also seemed to have more problems getting comfortable enough at night in order to fall asleep.

Here are a couple photos of me toward the end of my pregnancy at 39 weeks.

When I went to my 39-week appointment, I was given the option to induce labor or not. I had gone that route with MVP and felt that it was a great way to have a baby. I didn't have to wonder if I was in labor enough to go to the hospital or how to coordinate someone to watch Mark (especially if I should happen to go into labor at 2am or something.) This was of particular concern to us because we had no family in the area and didn't want to impose. Furthermore, with everything that was going on with the move up to Raleigh, it just seemed like the sooner the baby came, the better off I would be in my preparations for the move.

So on the morning of June 29th, we dropped MVP off at a friend's house and headed for the hospital. Because of a staff meeting, it took a couple hours for them to get me hooked up to an IV.  Once they got me hooked up, the medication slowly started to kick in. I got an epidural by a very gruff anesthetist. As things started to progress, the doctor broke my water and I recall feeling the "pop". As time wore on, I felt like the epidural was wearing off, so I asked the nurse to increase the medication, but it didn't seem to help. I was not happy. I was somewhat horrified that I was actually having the dreaded experience of having my epidural wear off. Fortunately, I felt like the pain was still manageable. Pretty soon, I felt like I REALLY needed to use the restroom and Andy reminded me that more than likely, the baby was on it's way. We called the nurse in and, sure enough, the baby was ready to come. It took a lot of restraint, but I was able to wait for the doctor to come and get everything ready. Once the doctor was ready, it took only about three pushes for her to come out! I was shocked at how quickly she arrived. 

 


 

One thing that was quite frightening was that the baby had swallowed some maternal blood during the birthing process, so the following two days, she was spitting up and choking on the blood. I had to suction it out at times and it made me nervous to take a nap or to not have her nearby. We were anxious for MVP to meet his baby sister, but had to wait till the next day since she wasn't born until after 4 PM and it took a while for me to get transferred to a private room for the night. When he finally met his little sister, MVP was a little timid and very curious to see her. He loves her very much and is so happy to have her here.

We have some friends from church who live very close to us who happened to have a baby girl the very next day. In the photo below, Our baby girl is on the left and theirs is on the right.


This is MVP's initial reaction to his baby sister. He wanted to get a real good look at her.