Birthdays

Happy 9th Birthday, Lara!

I think I have to do this, because I can't find it recorded anywhere on this blog. Though I feel like I've written it a million times: her birth story.

Lara was born exactly at 40 weeks. I went in to the hospital on my own. I went to bed the night before with cramping, which gradually turned into contractions. The contractions weren't too bad, but they were close enough together, and I knew I was already about 5cm dilated, so I decided it was time to go to the hospital around 4:00 in the morning. We only lived about 5 minutes down the road from the hospital and everything was very calm and quiet.

Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of details anymore. I got my gown on and got hooked up to all the monitors. The nurses asked me a gazillion questions, despite the fact that I had pre-registered. I just remember being in pain, and it was hard dealing with all the questions. I had back labor so Dustin rubbed my lower back during all the contractions (I did not have this with Claire). Rather quickly, I progressed to 8cm and 90% effaced. "Baby will be here soon," the nurses told me.

But then everything kind of stopped. The contractions did not stop, but I just didn't progress anymore. For probably a good 4 hours or more, there was just nothing. In fact, my cervix began hardening back up. That was so discouraging. The doctor wasn't happy with the lack of progress and I could tell she wanted to move things along. I told her to give me a little more time and then she could break my water. (I was doing this completely unmedicated.)

At some point, the doctor came back in and watched the monitors for awhile. I don't know what the problem was exactly, but there was one. They didn't like what they were seeing on the fetal monitor and decided to insert an internal monitor to get a better reading of Lara's heart. I also gave the go ahead for them to break my water. Very disconcertingly, when she did this, a LOT of meconium came out. Like a lot, a lot. The doctor was very concerned, I assume, from the combination of the monitor readings and the meconium. Things suddenly took a turn for the worse.

The doctor told me she was really concerned about Lara's oxygen, and she wanted to get her out as soon as possible. She told me she wanted the baby out within the next 20 minutes. Or I needed to be pushing within that time frame, or something. If not, we needed to do a c-section. There wasn't a discussion; we needed to get Lara out as soon as possible, period.

As the doctor turned away from me after telling me this, I positioned to laying on my back. And just like that, I start saying, "I'm pushing, I can't stop, the baby is coming NOW."  I think I remember them telling me to just go ahead and push, that was fine. Everyone ran around the room, yelling things, putting more scrubs on, calling around for help. Dustin got woozy, and he sat down while a nurse got him orange juice (he was not like this at all with Claire). In order to speed things up, the doctor gave me an episiotomy (some people are really against those, but I didn't consider it an issue at all-it didn't hurt and the healing was completely fine). I only gave about three really strong pushes, and she was out.

I didn't get to hold her. They held her up for me to see, then whisked her away to the other side of the room. Thankfully, it seemed she was pretty clear of meconium in her lungs. She never had to leave the room and she got normal Apgar results. Eventually, they brought her over to me so I could hold her, and the rest is history.

Now she is 9, and I'm so lucky to have her.

I didn't want to commit to much for her birthday, since I didn't know if we would be busy with a baby. Lara asked to go out to eat and do a little shopping with her best friends. So we picked up Maria and Zoe and went to O'Charley's. We let them sit at a table by themselves. They were so well-behaved, polite, and they prayed before they ate. I am so glad Lara has these sweet girls in her life.

A fun birthday present from Nana.

I made a pumpkin french toast bake and hot apple cider for Lara for breakfast.

Now for some really fat pregnancy pictures....39.5 weeks.

Man, that's one big, big belly. That's the way I like to do it!
I didn't feel too good last night. I was queasy off and on, and had what felt like contractions in my lower back. I just tried to ignore it and get some good sleep. Feeling better this morning.

Dustin's sister Amber had her baby yesterday. A little girl named Shay. They live in Virginia Beach, but hopefully we will get to see them at Christmas. So now Lara has a birthday buddy! Normally, our siblings don't remember the girls' birthdays (which is fine), but they remembered this year, so I think we have little Shay to thank for that. ;) LOL.