Birth Story

Well, she made it :)  Little Miss Lorelai is here! She's perfect, and healthy, and adorable.  So since this is my journal I am going to write the story of how we got her here!

On Thursday May 3rd at my weekly Dr appt the Dr suggested I have an amniocentesis the following week to see if Lorelai's lungs were mature enough to be induced.  We agreed, since I was having so many issues.  My hips had become increasingly worse, they both were giving out under me, I had even fallen quite a few times and bruised my hip pretty good (pretty bad?).  So we were scheduled for Tuesday at 10:15 am.  On Monday morning I was feeling pretty bad, and depressed.  So James called in sick to help take care of Thomas and I, and just to kind of have some time together. It was a really nice day actually, we got some stuff done, and played with Thomas a lot.  So Tuesday came, Michelle and MarJean came to watch Thomas and James and I went to the hospital. The nurse came out and called for Michelle, I waited a second, and since I was the only one in the waiting room said "I'm Amanda MICHELLE" and she laughed and said, "Oh, yes! Sorry, I was reading the wrong part of the form!"  So we were rolled back (I was in a wheelchair) and they did a nice long ultrasound to check her out, and find a place for the needle. The dr came in and told us all of the risks, which included her being born (kinda the point of the test) and possibly nicking the umbilical cord, in which case I'd have an immediate emergency c-section. This was like a 1 in 1000 chance, but it sure sounded bad... We agreed, feeling that it was best to do the test. So they put the needle in the first time, and boy was Lorelai uncooperative! She kept moving in the way, and wouldn't stay still long enough to do the test. Well they put the needle in and Lorelai literally grabbed the umbilical cord and moved it toward the needle.  Well that was too close for the Dr, so she took it out (I was fine with it!  Babies safety is way more important than anything else!) unfortunately that meant that she had to put the needle in my stomach again... The second time hurt a lot more than the first.  But they were able to get the sample, and then we had a NST while we waited for the results. So about half an hour later we got the results, and obviously it was that her lungs were mature!  So the nurse tells us this, and speaks to my Dr on the phone, and the nurse tells us to go home, and they would call us to let us know when to get back. So long story short, we go home and wait, and wait and wait, finally about 5 hours later I called the Dr, only to find out she was trying to get a hold of me the whole time, the nurse was crazy. We were supposed to go straight from the test over to Labor and Delivery, WHAT? So we hurridly find a sitter, and get everything together, and head to the hospital.  Get all checked in and they start hooking me up and what not.  We got there about 5pm, they started the pitocin at around 6, and by 8 nothing was happening... We were just waiting. So I sent James to get some dinner, I knew we would be up all night and the hospital only serves food during the day. So he got some Carl's Jr and I just kind of chilled, and waited. Still nothing happened.  So around 10 the Dr came in to see me, and she suggested we break my water so we can jump start everything and start doing internal monitoring because the external one wasn't working very well.  So around 10:30-11 we broke my water and my contractions came in at full force.  Right on top of each other, like 1 min apart.  So I got the epidural, I figured there was no use in waiting, and boy was I right.  I got the epidural around 11:30, and the nurse came in to check a little later, maybe 20 min, and I was at 9 cm.  Before they broke my water I was 3cm. So between 11 and 11:30 I made it 6 cm, and then by midnight I was 10, and getting ready to push.  The Dr came in and started getting everything ready, and by 12:30 we started to push.  She was born 15 minutes later.  Perfect, and beautiful. She had a full head of dark hair, and I was so excited! They let us keep her for about an hour and she nursed and we smiled and laughed and hugged her. Then they took her to the nursery for a bath, and I made my way to our room.  I got all cleaned up, and James and Lorelai came back. We cuddled a while, and then I asked the nurse to take her to the nursery.  I wasn't sure if I would have woken up if she cried, and James was exhausted. So we sent her to be taken care of, and slept for a few hours.  Of course they kept bugging me and taking my BP and giving me shots, ect. Well the baby slept for 6 hours! I was so sad I didn't get to sleep that whole time too! The next day we had a lot of visitors, and Thomas LOVED the baby. He just wanted to hold her and kiss her, it was so adorable!  He had so much fun seeing her! We left on Thursday afternoon, because I wanted to get home for Thomas. I would have liked to stay and have the nurses a little longer, but I felt like Thomas needed to come home. Well, that's the story so far!  We are so excited to have her home, and we are very blessed to have such beautiful children!