Christmas this year was extra special. Not only because of our (homemade!) matching Christmas pajama pants, or because the Iowa weather has been uncharacteristically warm (50 degrees!), but because we got to share it with our very own BabyGirl. Obviously Lyds will remember nothing of this Christmas and I'm sure future Christmases will be even more magical with a child who understands what's going on, but there was something distinctly different about this Christmas than Christmases of the past.
It's really not a secret that if it had been up to me, we would have waited a bit longer to start our family. I was planning on teaching at least one more year before having a baby and becoming a stay-at-home mom, but the Lord had different plans for us, and even just 7 weeks into this new life-adventure, it is so easy to see that the Lord always knows best. I've always known that I wanted to have children someday, but I've mentioned before that I'm not particularly drawn to babies and I honestly didn't believe that caring for something incapable of actually doing anything could be so amazingly fulfilling. But, as it turns out . . . I was wrong! Taking care of Lydia has been so much more rewarding than I ever thought, and it seems like everyday she does something to top the cutest thing from the day before.
This Christmas season I've felt a particular connection with Mary, the mother of Jesus. If there's anyone who knows about having a child in a timeframe that was not quite what they'd pictured-- it was definitely her! And, if someone can relate to feelings of inadequacy in being a new parent, I'm willing to bet she might have a thing or two to say about that as well ;). When I think of Mary, I think of her similarly to the way she was portrayed in The Nativity Story movie that came out in 2006. Although the movie takes its fair share of creative license, I really like it -particularly the way Mary and Joseph's relationship is depicted.
And so, with Mary on my mind, I was delighted when Stephen and I were asked to play Joseph and Mary in the annual Nativity reenactment on Christmas Day.
I have a few more Christmas-related posts in the works, but in the meantime: Merry (Belated) Christmas!
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han.
One of my favorite bloggers occasionally posts funny things her kids do/say and she calls them "Eleanorisms" and "Samsonisms." I always enjoy reading them, so I thought I would start to do the same thing for Lydia. Obviously she can't talk, so for the next few years they probably won't be quite as entertaining as the ones I've read, but this is mostly a way to record funny and endearing things about Little Lydia.
LYDIAISMS
Sleeping. She usually freaks out for about an hour before we try to go to bed, but once we get her down, she wakes up twice to eat during the night and other than that she doesn't make a peep. She has spoiled us for sure. She also loves sleeping in the boba wrap and in her carseat--as long as the car is moving.
Cough-crying. It sounds like a fake cough while she cries. It's both hilarious and sad at the same time.
Rocking the baby mullet. (Hey, at least she has hair! :))
Dark blue/grey eyes. We check them every day to see if they're changing, but so far they are still looking blue to me.
Sneezing in threes.
Covering her mouth when she sneezes (sometimes). I'm like 99% sure it's a reflex, but I find it adorable.
Pooping and farting with the best of them.
Humming in her sleep.
Snoring, snorting, and grunting (while sleeping and eating).
Letting out a cry of indignation when she’s waking up (and then proceeding to sleep for another 20 minutes). Stephen says he is already dreading the days she has to get up for early morning seminary.
Hiding lint and fuzz in her rolls of chub.
Stretching ALLL the way out! If she’s sleeping on my chest/lap and wakes up but can’t stretch out all the way she gets GRUMPY! I’ve found she is much more pleasant when waking up if I put her down where she has space to stretch how she pleases. haha
It's amazing to see little glimpses of her personality at just 5 weeks old! Although I sometimes get sad seeing how quickly she's growing (silly, I know) I'm really excited to get to see more of her personality as she gets older. She's already started to smile a lot more (yes, I realize most of the time it's probably just indigestion, but it still makes my heart melt) and I'm so excited for when we can make her smile and laugh.
_ _ _
han.
PS To see another glimpse into the first month of Lydia's life be sure to check out this post :)
PS To see another glimpse into the first month of Lydia's life be sure to check out this post :)
The first month of parenting told via (Stephen's and my) google searches:
For the record, it took almost 20 minutes, but we did finally figure out how to loosen the straps on Lydia's carseat after an additional handful of (not listed) searches and a call to my mom. HAHAHA.
Oh how much fun it is to be an oblivious new parent.
😂😂😂
_ _ _
han.
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Experiencing Lydia's birth will forever be one of the most precious moments of my entire life, and was incredibly emotional and spiritual for both Hannah and me. Although I have already told all of this to you over the phone I want to write down the story of Lydia's birth from my memory so that I can have it forever. I still don't know if I can find the words to adequately describe how precious it was and how much I admire Hannah, but I'll do my best with my limited vocabulary.
As Lydia's Halloween due date approached Hannah and I became more and more anxious to have a baby. Thankfully, Hannah was not feeling as much physical discomfort as I think most pregnant women feel at nine months. The tough part at first was just the waiting, but then as the due date came and went it became more about Hannah feeling bad for keeping April and Mom Flinders out here. April had come up from St. George with her 2 year-old, Kennedy, on Monday, to be Hannah's doula, and was planning to stay until Hannah had her baby. Mom Flinders arrived on Monday, November 2nd, and was planning on staying until Wednesday the 11th (she has since graciously extended her stay to the 14th).
By Wednesday, Hannah was feeling so anxious that she started getting crazy ideas of ways to get things moving a little quicker. Hannah had joked about hiking the Y on Tuesday, but when I jokingly texted her on Wednesday morning saying, "So have you hiked the Y yet?" I was shocked to almost instantly get a picture message back showing the base of Y Mountain. I was sure she was joking and responded that she had found a nice picture off the internet, but she quickly sent me a second picture of both her and her mom standing at the start of the trail, ready to hike! They took their time going up and down, but they hiked the whole trail, all the way up to the Y and back!
After hiking the trail they did some other crazy wives-tale things to get Hannah to go into labor. The worst sounding one was drinking a strange concoction of caster oil and some other stuff which made Hannah quite sick by about 8 p.m. Whether they were the things that did the trick or not, we don't know, but by about 8:30 or so Hannah was having much more frequent contractions than she'd ever had before.
We hung around our place for a while, doing our best to stay distracted as we timed her contraction lengths and intervals, but eventually decided to go over to the Gordon's house so that Hannah could take a warm bath. It was also convenient to be there because April was able to help Hannah with her breathing and focus.
At about 1:45 a.m. Hannah's contractions had begun to get too intense for her to sleep. She had only gone to bed about an hour before, and she woke me up at about 2 (I had slept for a couple hours) to help her get through her big contractions. We were still at the Gordon's house, so we texted April and went to the living room to help Hannah. April was helpful from the very beginning, helping direct Hannah and focus her breathing so that she could control her contractions as she tried different positions on an exercise ball.
Hannah labored for about 2 hours before deciding that it was time to go to the hospital. Her contractions were about 2 minutes apart on average, and getting stronger and stronger over time. The main thing we were concerned about, however, is that she was bleeding quite a bit and we were worried that it wasn't a good thing. After eating a couple pieces of toast, knowing that it might be her last food for a while, we headed to Utah Valley Regional Center.
The hospital was quiet and deserted as we made our way up to Labor and Delivery on the 5th floor. Everything was pretty calm, much like when Hannah and I went in to the hospital a few weeks ago worrying that her water had broken, except for the difference that Hannah needed to stop every one hundred yards or so and deal with a contraction. When we got up to the 5th floor and got checked in, we requested the same room that Hannah had been given the previous time. Thankfully it was open and we were able to get it. It may seem silly or insignificant to some, but it was a nice little tender mercy to us to have a room that Hannah had been to and pictured for the last couple weeks. It was only one tender mercy of many over the course of the night. We got into the room and when the nurse checked on Hannah, she was dilated to a 5 and we were officially admitted for labor!
Despite the explaining and discussions about labor that I'd had with Hannah leading up to the birth, I realized that I had no idea what labor would be like. I don't know if Hannah would say the same, but for me, labor was much less traumatic than I was expecting. The main reason for that is because Hannah was absolutely incredible. Not that I ever underestimated her, but she was calm and controlled to a point that I didn't even know would be possible during labor. That doesn't mean that it was easy by any means, but she was calm, kind, patient, and very grateful for the help we could give her.
Hannah's contractions continued to happen about every two minutes or so, with increasing intensity as she progressed in dilation. From the time we were checked into the hospital at about 4 a.m. she progressed about one centimeter per hour until she reached a 7. Having April there as the doula was incredibly helpful. She was an excellent coach and did a great job of helping Hannah remember to relax and breathe through each contraction. I was especially grateful that she was there as a coach because it allowed me to play a 100% supportive role for Hannah and do whatever she needed me to. I can't express how much it meant to me to finally be able to help with Han's pregnancy. For months I have had to watch her be sick, have pain in her back, be more gassy than a nuclear power plant, and deal with acid re-flux, all without me being able to do anything to really take away the pain. Finally, though, in labor, I could help! I could put counter pressure on her back, I could stroke her head, and when Hannah was going through contractions while standing up I could support her while she hung around my neck.
By about 10 a.m. Hannah had been dilated to a 7 for a little over an hour. It was also about that time that the doctor on-call came in for the first time (Hannah's doctor was on a very timely vacation until Friday) to take a look at Hannah. We had been informed that the on-call doctor had already had a pretty busy and stressful morning. She was coming to see us in between the completion of an emergency C-Section and the start of an emergency D&C, and as soon as she walked in the room and started talking we started feeling the stress as well.
There were so many things wrong with our first encounter with the doctor that I don't even know where to start. As I remember, she walked in, clearly in a rush, said hello, mentioned that she hadn't had a chance to look over Hannah's file yet, but said that based on what she'd seen from the baby's heartbeat and been told about the amount of blood Hannah was losing, we should prepare for an emergency C-Section.
We felt like we had all been punched in the stomach. Hannah had worked so hard on preparing herself to be able to a natural birth and she had been rocking it for the past 8 hours, and a C-Section felt like it was going to take the purpose of all that away. To make matters even worse, as the doctor examined Hannah she exclaimed, "Where's her epidural, does she not have an epidural?" When Hannah said no and that she wanted to do it naturally, the doctor boldly stated, "Well you should get an epidural, because if you start bleeding too much when your water breaks, we'll have to rush you into an emergency C-Section, and by that time, if you don't have an epidural, you'll have to go under general anesthesia." If Hannah were to go under general anesthesia, no one other than doctors would be allowed in the room and we wouldn't get to see the birth of our baby.
We felt like we had all been punched in the stomach. Hannah had worked so hard on preparing herself to be able to a natural birth and she had been rocking it for the past 8 hours, and a C-Section felt like it was going to take the purpose of all that away. To make matters even worse, as the doctor examined Hannah she exclaimed, "Where's her epidural, does she not have an epidural?" When Hannah said no and that she wanted to do it naturally, the doctor boldly stated, "Well you should get an epidural, because if you start bleeding too much when your water breaks, we'll have to rush you into an emergency C-Section, and by that time, if you don't have an epidural, you'll have to go under general anesthesia." If Hannah were to go under general anesthesia, no one other than doctors would be allowed in the room and we wouldn't get to see the birth of our baby.
The doctor said she had to be off to perform the D&C, but that we had two decisions to make. The first decision was whether or not we wanted her to break Hannah's water, which would hopefully make her body progress more quickly, and the second was whether or not she wanted an epidural. The concern was that the blood Hannah was losing was actually coming from a tear in the placenta, and that if too much blood were lost, the baby would not be safe. The doctor and nurses all said that since Lydia's head was so low, it was possible that it was blocking more blood from coming out, and that as soon as Hannah's water broke and some space was freed up, things would get a little more messy. We tried asking the doctor what the odds of each outcome were, but she seemed almost insistent that Hannah would be having a C-Section. It seemed as though to her, it was only a matter of whether Hannah wanted an epidural or general anesthesia. With that, she told us she would be back in 30-45 minutes, and left us to decide what route to take.
We all felt like the air had been taken out of the room. Hannah and I both felt devastated, and we all felt like we had just been pushed around by the bully on the playground. We really didn't want to have a C-Section birth, but it felt like that was inevitable, and that Hannah would be silly not to give up on the idea of having a natural birth and get an epidural right then so that I could be in the room and she could be conscious when they pulled Lydia out.
We were ok with the decision to have the doctor break Hannah's water. The process doesn't hurt, and it just moved things along at a normal, natural pace, with the only change being that contractions get a little more intense. The real decision was between getting an epidural or not. At this point all four of us were crying (I'll admit and say that I was probably crying the most). I texted Mom and Dad and Sarah as well as a few friends to please pray for us to help us make the right decision. We decided to first say a prayer, and then I would give Hannah a blessing.
I can't think of a time that I have prayed with more sincere intent than at that moment. I have had deeply spiritual experiences through prayer before as I've prayed to gain a testimony, or prayed for comfort multiple times on my mission, but never have I been so focused and filled with faith than as we bowed our heads to ask for help to make the right decision. I was an emotional wreck at this point, but managed to sputter out to Heavenly Father that my biggest concern is that Hannah be safe, and that Lydia be healthy, and that we walk away with our family. I also prayed that we would know which decision to make, that we would be able to communicate with the doctor and nurses better, and that we would be calmed and comforted no matter the outcome.
I gave Hannah a blessing of strength and intuition, that she would know and feel what was best. Never have I been so grateful to be a worthy priesthood holder, and for its power that has been restored in order to bless the lives of others. I know its power is real because I felt it as we prayed. As soon as the blessing was finished we all took a moment to warm ourselves in the peacefulness of the Spirit that filled the room, and humble ourselves as we listened for an answer to our prayer. After twenty minutes or so of thinking and discussing all the potential outcomes, both Hannah and I could not let go of the feeling that we wanted to move forward and have her water broken without an epidural. We both felt like it was what we wanted most, and the peace we felt in the room seemed to continue as we talked it out. We asked Mom Flinders and April if they agreed with our decision, and they said yes, and so we told the nurse. We felt prepared to assume the risk between the best outcome and the worst outcome and felt more motivated to do it than to deal with the other two not-so-great outcomes.
When the doctor came back around 10:30, it was instantly apparent that our prayers had been heard. It was as if we were meeting a completely different person when she came in, sat down next to Hannah, and walked through her thoughts. As she sat down she told us that she had had a chance to look over Hannah's file, see that she was very healthy, and said that she felt optimistic moving forward. The nurse must have told her our decision before she came in, because she did not ask nor question it, she only proceeded to ask Hannah about how she had envisioned the birth. As Hannah walked through everything we had planned for--natural delivery, no epidural or episiotomy, immediate skin to skin time, and me cutting the umbilical cord--the doctor was supportive and encouraging. She didn't even mention a C-Section again.
The doctor had previously said that we would know after only a minute or two of breaking Hannah's water whether or not she would need to have a C-Section, so we all waited anxiously after Hannah had her water broken with what looked like a giant plastic crochet hook. Since she'd been admitted to the hospital, Hannah had two heart monitors around her stomach, one to monitor her heart and one to monitor baby's. We all breathed sighs of relief as Lydia's heartbeat remained normal after Hannah's water broke. Our prayers had been answered in full. We'd listened to the Holy Ghost and made the right decision, and it looked like everything we had planned for was going to happen!
As soon as Hannah's water broke she progressed to 8 cm dilated. I guess once you get passed 7 things really start to kick into gear for the home stretch. Hannah said that the contractions were certainly stronger, but it seemed like at that point we were all just anxious for her to hurry up and dilate to a 10 so we could get Lydia out and see her. We were encouraged by how quickly Hannah went from a 7 to an 8, and then an 8 to a 9, but it took what felt like a long time for her to finish it out and get to a 10. Things were especially difficult once she dilated to a 9 because she started feeling intense urges to push. The nurse had told us this would likely happen, but that Hannah shouldn't give in because if she did, Lydia's head might bash up again her cervix, which would cause it to swell and cause the birthing experience to be even more difficult. Hannah did a fantastic job. Our favorite moments were her saying, "Oh wow, I really want to push. Trying not to push, trying not to push...pushing! Pushing! Giving in!" Although she felt like she gave in, she did a near perfect job and did not cause herself any later problems. By a little after 11 am she was dilated to a 10 and it was ready to start the final stretch.
By this time I was starting to get teary-eyed again because it was so emotional to realize that our little girl was going to be born any minute. The doctor came back in as well as a couple extra nurses, and Mom Flinders, April, and I all took positions around the bed with them in order to help Hannah get through the last parts of the delivery. I got to hold Hannah's left foot/leg, and Mom and April stood by her to help coach and comfort her.
I want to reiterate at this point that I cannot express or describe my admiration for Hannah. This is probably the most painful part of the whole experience and Hannah powered through it like a pro. She was truly incredible. I have never seen such control and focus. It gave me a new definition of power. Not brute force or physical strength, but pure strength of will and of mind. She is my hero. At this point she had been laboring for about 9 hours, she had been awake for basically 26 hours straight, in which, don't forget, she had hiked the Y, and she had had nothing to eat other than ice chips since we had checked in at 4 a.m, and two pieces of toast before that, she threw up around 6 o clock. She could easily have been grumpy, angry, impatient, or bossy, and nobody ever would have blamed her. Instead, she was calm, patient, kind, and extremely polite. She thanked us every time we handed her the cup of ice, and she also thanked the nurse for counting to 10 every time she had a contraction so she could have a goal for how long to push. She is an angel.
I also want to mention that I had seen almost a dozen videos of births before in my anatomy class and from being a TA for Human Development, but nothing could ever have prepared me for how miraculous it was to see a birth in real life. When I say miraculous, I mean it completely literally. Not only is it a miracle that a baby comes to life and takes a first breath, but it's also a miracle that she fits the tiny door she has to come out of. It was so emotional to watch Hannah straining to push as hard as she could and at the same time see Lydia's head come out a little more each time. I think the most uncomfortable thing for Hannah was the doctor's attempts to try and "loosen things up down there." From my position I could see that the doctor was just poking around with her fingers, but Hannah asked later what the deal was with the "wooden dowel" that the doctor was prodding her with, haha. It was obviously a tight squeeze (as noted by the doctor more than a dozen times), but after about 45 minutes of pushing, at 11:52 a.m., Hannah gave her final effort and Lydia Lynn was born! It was at that time that I also learned why the jargon is "catch the baby" because she came flying out much faster than I had anticipated!
From then on everything seems like it was a blur. Our whole experience from labor to discharge from the hospital 48 hours later seems like a blur. Actually, it all still feels like a blur after 10 days of taking care of Lydia, haha. It might sound bad, but I had not imagined how complete and human Lydia would look from the instant she came out. Her skin color was a light shade of purple, but she looked like a real person! She had all of the features of a baby, as well as a full head of hair (which Hannah and I were/are thrilled about). We waited a minute as they cleaned her off and got some things situated, and then I got to cut the umbilical cord (which, by the way, is the coolest looking thing ever). Right after that they picked Lydia up and handed her over to her mom. Hannah and I could not believe how perfect she was. She is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, and she was so calm that there was almost a reverent silence in the room. Well, what would have been a reverent silence if it weren't for all the horribly uncomfortable stitch up work that they had to do on Hannah after Lydia and the placenta had come out.
As is fairly common for a first birth, Hannah had some tearing that needed to be stitched up after Lydia came out. It's also not too surprising, since Lydia weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces and was 19 inches. After Hannah had passed the placenta and the doctor started evaluating the aftermath, we realized why Hannah had been losing so much blood. As the doctor and nurses had suspected, there was a tear in the placenta, which could have been dangerous for the baby, but there was also a tear on the inside of her vagina. All in all the nurses said she lost about 700 cc's of blood, which again makes us grateful that our prayers were answered and both Hannah and Lydia were safe, and everything was able to work out according to plan.
After everything had been cleaned up and taken care of from the birth, I went with Lydia down to the nursery where her vitals were checked, she was given a couple shots, and a sponge bath. None of it felt like it could possibly be real life. People calling me Daddy? It didn't seem possible. I was beaming from ear to ear the whole time and I felt like I was on top of the world.
The rest of the birth story really just consists of us being moved to a much smaller room and being taken care of by nurses for 48 hours, as well as some birth aftermath stories that are TMI, haha. Everyone who helped us at the hospital was extremely kind and we felt very watched over and cared for during our stay. We were discharged on Saturday morning, just before noon, and Hannah walked out of the hospital. That's right, no wheelchair. She walked out like a victorious champion.
After over a week it's only starting to feel like this is real life and we aren't just babysitting someone else's baby while they're away on vacation. We are so grateful to Mom Flinders for staying with us and being extremely helpful in giving us advice, helping care for Lydia, making dinners, running errands, and organizing our house. She is a saint, and we would have been a wreck without her.
We're grateful for the love and support and prayers from everyone on our's and Lydia's behalf. It has truly been one of the greatest experiences of my life (right up there next to getting married) and Hannah and I feel humbled by the trust Heavenly Father has in us to raise one of His daughters. Babies raising babies. We know we will continue to be loved and blessed and are excited to play out all our many new adventures. Although I previously didn't know it was possible, my love for Hannah grew immensely as I watched her go through giving birth to Lydia. I could not be luckier in getting to be her husband and having the chance to be by her side. I love her with my whole heart and soul and I know she will be the perfect mother for our children. I am so excited to see her in action.
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Stephen
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Stephen
In just a few short days, Lydia will be a whole month old. A month! It is unreal how quickly the past four weeks have gone. And while, yes, they've definitely had their challenging moments, overall the transition-to-parents has been easier than expected. I know...shocking, right?!! There are a few things I attribute this to: the fact that my mom extended her trip and stay with us for the first week Lydia was home (THANK YOU AGAIN, MOM!), the kindness from our friends/ward for supplying us with dinners, and last but most certainly not least, having this amazing man ↓ by my side.
It's funny, during the few weeks before Lydia came, I read a lot of articles to help myself "prepare" (like that's really possible) for life with a newborn. One common theme I saw in these articles focused on how the marriage relationship is impacted once there is a baby. Interestingly, ALL of the articles I came across implied that this relationship-shift would be negative. These articles had titles such as, Why You Hate Your Husband (After Baby Arrives) and You'll Probably Want a Divorce After You Have a Baby (It's Normal). I even read about a study that said, "the drop in happiness experienced by parents after the birth of a first child is larger than the experience of unemployment, divorce or death of a partner."
YIKES!
Not one article I came across talked about how much more love and appreciation I'd have for my husband. How much more grateful I'd be to have him there to help and support me on this crazy roller coaster of parenthood.
So where are THOSE articles?? Because THAT has truly been the reality.
Watching Stephen become a dad has been every bit as amazing and wonderful as I thought it would be. His love for Lydia has been apparent from day one in the hospital, when I would wake up and see him standing over Lydia's little cradle, just checking on her to make sure she was still breathing. For her, he's mastered the art of swaddling and not complained once about having to change a dirty diaper. He's laughed when she's peed on him, and swooned over her perfect chub and unbelievably-soft skin. He's held and admired her while she slept. The word "cute" has become a staple in his vocabulary.
Does any of that sound like it would cause me to hate my husband???
Not only has Stephen been an adorable new-dad, he's been an equally amazing support to me.
He's made me breakfast in bed who-knows-how-many times. He's reminded me (daily) to take my iron pills (because sometimes I purposely forget). He's woken up with me countless times while I've fed Lydia, just so he can change her diaper. He's held me while I've cried for impossibly-silly reasons, and never once made me feel silly about it. He's lightened the mood when I've been grumpy and he's encouraged me to get out of the house whenever I've needed some fresh air.
It may be a miracle, but he has truly made the start of this crazy newborn/new-parent stage of life enjoyable. And though the authors of the aforementioned articles might not be able to believe it...this whole experience has actually made me love him more.
So, expectant-mothers take heart! You don't have to hate your husband after all (thank goodness!).
_ _ _
han.
When Lydia was given all the tests at the hospital, everything looked great except one thing: her bilirubin levels were a liiitle bit high. Bilirubin is (I hope this is at least semi-accurate information, haha) something in our bodies that is supposed to be broken down by our liver and then pooped out, but oftentimes baby's liver's aren't quite up to snuff, so the bilirubin builds up and this build up causes the skin and the "whites" of eyes to look orange which is called Jaundice. We were released from the hospital Saturday morning, but I was told I needed to take Lydia into lab the next day (Sunday) to get her blood tested to monitor the bilirubin. The nurses assured me that it really wasn't much to worry about and that it is really, really common, so I took their advice and didn't think much of it.
Taking Lydia into the lab that first day was so sad! They pricked her little foot and then squeezed drops of blood out until it filled a teeny tiny little vile. Lydia SCREAMED and screamed :(. It almost broke my brand-new-mom-heart.
The drill was repeated on Monday, and then we took her to a doctor's appointment shortly after. The doctor said that her levels had continued to rise so she needed to be put on a "bili-bed" that would help her body breakdown the excess of bilirubin. The good news was the bed could be delivered to our house and she could stay on it there. The bad news was that Lydia was to stay on the bed AT ALL TIMES other than eating or getting her diaper changed.
Personally, I felt like I'd been doing a pretty good job of holding it together until the doctor said that...and then, there was no holding it together. I broke down, hardcore. Being told you're not allowed to hold your baby as much as you want just a few days after she's born??? Not okay.
The Bili-Bed was delivered Monday night around 7:00 pm (after some really annoying issues with insurance). The doctor wanted to make sure I received the bed and the blanket. "Blanket" is an extremely inaccurate description of what the "blanket" actually was. In reality the "blanket" was a paddle that Lydia had to have strapped to her stomach!
^^NOT A BLANKET. It was literally a hard plastic paddle with thin fabric over the top that we had to velcro around Lydia's body. I wish I'd gotten a better picture. Here's a slightly better one I found online.
The home-health guy that brought the bed set it up and showed us how to put Lydia in it. When we put her in that first time she was LIVID. She hated the thing! She hated it so much she peed all over it! Haha. (She really did - we're still trying to figure out how her diaper didn't catch any of the pee...)
Thankfully thankfully (due to many prayers) after a few minutes Lydia calmed down and she didn't actually hate the bed like I was sure she was going to. Surprisingly she slept on it fine (much to my denial, haha).
The next day we took her in to the lab around 3:00 to get her blood tested. I was told that her number was low enough that I should take her off of the bed! Now we just had to wait and see if her body would continue to breakdown and remove the bilirubin on its own, so we continued to take her into the lab to have her blood tested every day or two. I found out later that I was actually supposed to have kept her on the bed for another night, but that's not what I was told! And thankfully, after a few days her numbers were low enough that I was able to return the bed and she's been great ever since!
Although I was really bummed when I first found out about the fact that Lydia would have to stay on the bili-bed, I really am grateful for how everything went. First of all, I'm grateful that the bilirubin wasn't hurting Lydia at all. I'm also grateful that the treatment (aka the light-bed) wasn't painful. I'm grateful that by the end of the week Lydia was sleeping through her foot-prick blood-draws. I'm grateful for the technology that allowed her to get treated at home, and mostly I'm grateful that she didn't even have to stay on the bed for a full 24 hours!
Hooray for healthy babies!
_ _ _
han.
PS Stephen would always say that when the doctors and nurses talked about "bilirubin" it sounded like they were talking about some mean bully named Billy Ruben, which is where I came up with the title of this post. :)
By Tuesday, November 2, I was a few days past my due date and READY to have a baby. I'd been dilated to a 2 for over two weeks, and had had my membranes swept FOUR times. It wasn't that I felt like I was oh-so ready to be a parent or anything crazy like that, but the mental game was GETTING TO ME. Thankfully (times 100), I was incredibly blessed to not be miserable during the last few weeks of my pregnancy physically, but mentally I was STRUGGLING.
My mom had flown in the night before (Monday) and my cousin April (who was kind enough to agree to be my doula) had come up from St. George a full week previous because she wanted to guarantee she would be here when I went into labor. As luck would have it, I had just been informed by my doctor that he was going to be out of town Wednesday - Friday. PERFECT. Although I was a little bummed my doctor was out of town, I was determined to have that baby SOON because my mom already had her ticket to fly home the following Wednesday, November 11, and I really, really wanted her here for the time AFTER the baby came (as much fun as it was having her here before as well :)) and I really did feel bad making April be away from her husband for so long. (Even though she was being incredibly nice about it.)
Anyway, back to Tuesday morning. When I arrived at my Aunt's house, my mom and my aunt were talking about plans for the day. "We have an idea," my aunt said with a smile. Without missing a beat I responded, "What?! Go hike the Y?? Let's do it!" They both laughed and my aunt explained that their plans were basically the opposite of hiking the Y, aka going to the movie theatre. We ended up going to see a movie (The Intern, in case you're curious) but my mom and I did go on a walk around the neighborhood before and after the movie -- just incase walking might encourage things to move along. Unfortunately nothing seemed to come of it, and even though I went to sleep Tuesday night optomistic I might wake up with crazy contractions, I woke up entirely too-well rested the next morning. (Sidenote: I was (and slightly still am) thoroughly convinced that people only start "real labor" at night, so whenever I would wake up in the morning not having woken up because of contractions the night before, I felt like I would just have to 'get through today' to see if tonight might be the night. haha. By the way, it turns out my theory is kinda true).
I went back over to my aunt's house Wednesday morning (where my mom was staying) and my mom and I talked about plans for the day. We thought about maybe going to the dollar theatre to see another movie just to pass the time, but decided to go on a walk first. When we were going outside for the walk my mom said, "You don't have to do this...but I was just thinking, if we're going to go on a walk anyway, do you want to just go walk the Y-trail for a little bit and then we can stop and come back whenever you're ready to stop?"
I laughed and said, "Sure! Why not?!" (Note: If you know me at all you will see a small glimpse of how much the mental game was affecting my mental capacity, hahaha. This blog post might give you some idea about how much I
We jumped in the car and headed to the trailhead. As we were parking, I received a text from Stephen jokingly asking, "Hiked the Y yet??" The timing was impeccable. I sent him a picture of the gate at the trail head and he responded with, "No way. You pulled that from the web." So I sent him another picture of my mom and me on the trail. He responded with, "You've got pregnancy brain! You've gone all opposite on me and actually want to hike! I don't even know you anymore!" It was hilarious.
Although I truly wasn't sure if I would make it to the top...I did. We took PLENTY of breaks, though. :) It was actually a beautiful hike! The weather was nice, too. I was pretty proud of myself for doing it, since I really am not a hiker, nor have I ever enjoyed that hike (or any hike, come to think of it) not pregnant. Since I was so proud of myself, I did what any vain millennial would do, and posted a picture of my mom and me at the top on social media. Within an hour, I had all sorts of advice on ways to "jumpstart labor" coming in! haha. Some suggestions included: bouncing on an exercise ball, walking more hills, pressing pressure points on my feet, and then my friend Ann called with the recipe for a crazy drink-concoction her midwife had recommended to her just a few weeks before. The drink consisted of castor oil, almond butter, Kern's nectar, and lemon juice. According to Ann, according to her midwife, the drink should "get things going" within an hour and a half, and if it hasn't started working within four hours, it's not going to work, so try again in a day or two. Although I was skeptical, at this point I had nothing to lose! I had hiked the Y for crying out loud!! Why in the world would I not at least try bouncing on an exercise ball or drink this crazy weird drink thing?? SO, my mom and I were off to Walgreens to buy the supplies!
I drank the drink at 6:25 p.m. (And here is an incredibly unflattering video to prove it)
After finishing the lovely concoction (and bouncing on the exercise ball a little longer), my mom and I left for Stephen's intramural volleyball game. (He's on a team with my brother Daniel, sister Miriam, and a bunch of my cousins that attend BYU.) About halfway into the game I started feeling reeeeallllyyy sick. No, not like I was going to have a baby..but like I was going to throw up the nasty drink I had just chugged! As soon as the game ended (about 8:10), I felt AWFUL. We headed home and I immediately got into bed and tried to rest. Luckily after a little bit the nausea subsided and at about 9:00 pm I started having contractions. This didn't really mean a whole lot to me because I'd been having irregular contractions for a few weeks that obviously hadn't amounted to anything. After about 30 minutes, though, they were definitely stronger than I'd experienced before and seemed pretty regular. I started timing them using an app on my phone and they were about 3 minutes apart, but not THAT painful. There was definitely more pressure than I'd experienced before, but I was still fine. We watched an episode of Modern Family to see if they would continue to get stronger. They did. I called my aunt and asked if we could come over so I could take a bath in her big tub because I'd read that water helps lessen contractions, and I was curious to see if it would make the contractions go away altogether. She said that was fine, so we got all of our stuff "just in case this was real labor," packed up the car, straightened a few things around the house, (I made Stephen shave hahaha), and then went over.
When we got to my aunt's house things were about the same. I was having contractions about every three minutes, but still they weren't the "can't walk through it/can't talk through it" type of contractions that I knew meant business. I told Stephen he should go to sleep for a little bit just in case this was the real deal. I knew that it was important he had a little sleep because I was depending on his help to get me through the natural labor I'd planned for.
I got in the bath and immediately my contractions stopped. ha. I felt dumb. I was like, "Dangit. Now I've gotten everyone's hopes up and NOTHING IS EVEN HAPPENING." I stayed in the bath for probably half an hour and then I started bleeding so I quickly got out. I'd been bleeding off and on for a couple days, so I didn't really think that much of it. (Especially since I knew by now that my body does crazy things while pregnant and by this point I just stopped asking questions and treated every possible thing as a normal pregnancy symptom.) As soon as I got out of the tub I started having contractions again, so I was just all kinds of confused. Was this baby coming tonight or not?!!?!? I decided that if she WAS coming I would probably benefit from some sleep as well (seeing as my 9 month pregnant self had just hiked the Y earlier that day and I was already really tired...) so I decided to lie down, too. I got in bed (at my Aunt's) at about 12:30 am. Thankfully I was able to fall asleep, but at about 1:40 am I woke up to even stronger contractions that were about 2 or 2.5 minutes apart. After about twenty minutes of timing the contractions, I woke up Stephen (I had promised I'd keep him posted of any changes) and April and the three of us went to the living room so they could help me better work through the contractions. Since I planned on a natural labor, I wanted to labor at "home" as long as possible, because I knew once I got to the hospital I would have monitors on me and an IV, and changing labor positions would be more difficult, so we stayed at the house for another two hours. Stephen and April applied counter-pressure on my back, I tried a few different laboring positions that April recommended, and I tried to stay as relaxed as possible. Meanwhile, I was bleeding a lot but still not paying that much attention to it. Just before 4:00 am we decided that I might as well go to the hospital. April had started timing my contractions and she said they were about 1.5-2 minutes apart and she was slightly concerned that I was bleeding so much. I tried to "take a walk" around my aunt's house and definitely had to stop and give my full concentration to the contractions, so I felt like I was at the level of contractions my doctor had told me about.
We had a snack (toast is what sounded really good to me, haha), Stephen gave me a Priesthood Blessing (I explain a little bit about what that means in the last paragraph of this post), woke up my mom, and the four of us headed to the hospital. What was weird to me at this point was the fact that even though I was having pretty strong contractions, between the contractions I felt 100% normal. I guess I wasn't expecting for it to be such a stark contrast between when I was having a contraction and when I wasn't. I kept asking my mom and April, "Is it normal to have ZERO pain between contractions??" because I was still not completely convinced that I was about to have a baby. I was still so worried that I was getting everyone's hopes up for no reason!
My aunt only lives about 3 minutes away from the hospital, and at 4:00 am there were very few cars on the road, so we got there really fast. We parked and started walking in to the hospital. My mom asked if I wanted a wheelchair, but I said I didn't want one. A few people had commented that "you won't be able to walk into the hospital" implying that I would require the use of a wheelchair, and I wanted to prove them wrong. haha. Yes, even in labor, I am prideful. We got up to Labor and Delivery and I swear the lady looked at me standing there, in zero pain (I was in between contractions) and she gave me a look of, "Oh honey. You are most definitely not in labor." But she was still really nice and got me set up in the room. We asked for a specific room that I had been in a few weeks before (when we thought maybe my water had broken when it actually hadn't -- apparently I don't even know when I'm peeing myself....) and since it was free, they were kind enough to give it to us! That was a tender mercy for me because I tend to visualize things a lot, and since I'd seen that particular delivery room, I'd visualized the birth taking place there. That probably doesn't make sense, but needless to say I was grateful we got the room I requested. :)
I put on the really cute hospital gown on (haha) and laid down on the bed. (Sidenote: I was kind of bleeding everywhere at this point but still not really paying attention to it because I felt fine.) The nurse came in and checked me and said I was 5 cm dilated! I was so glad she didn't say I was at a 2.5 or something because I would have been rather discouraged, and felt really dumb, haha. I asked her if that meant they would automatically keep me, or if they would have me leave if I wasn't progressing. She said that since I was bleeding so much they were going to keep me either way. That was the first time that it actually occurred to me that maybe all this blood wasn't normal, but I was more concentrated on the fact that this meant I was ACTUALLY going to have a baby! I would officially be a mom by the time I left the hospital -- whenever that was going to be. I was so relieved!
The next 4 hours are kind of a blur. I remember vivid things here and there, but I was soooo tired! One thing I vividly remember is that my feet were FREEZING. It literally felt like I had ice bags attached at the ankles! Thankfully we had some of those microwavable rice-bag things that my mom, April, and Stephen were nice enough to continually re-heat because I was trying to relax/concentrate on the contractions, but it was really hard when my feet were so so so cold! haha.
I mentioned before that I planned on doing a natural birth. People are often really confused about why in the world I would want to do such a thing. I don't blame them. A year ago I would have thought I was crazy! After I found out I was pregnant, I started talking with a few friends who had done natural births and it was always amazing to me to hear them talk about the experience. Many friends talked about how spiritual of an experience it was and how much of a bonding experience it was for them and their husbands. One of Stephen's cousin's I talked to mentioned that she had experienced both natural birth and a birth with an epidural and she unquestioningly preferred the natural birth because it was such an emotional and spiritual and bonding experience, especially for her and her husband. I really liked that. I liked the idea of the labor being a team effort of me and Stephen. Around that time I asked my cousin April if she would consider being my doula. We weren't exactly sure how it was going to work since she lives in St. George, but thankfully she was kind enough to come up a week before my due date and then just hang out until Lydia decided to come.
I prepared for the natural birth by talking to people to who had experience with natural birth, reading a few books (Hypnobirthing, The Birthing Partner's Handbook), reading lots of positive natural birth stories online (on the Hypnobabies website), listening to the Hypnobabies relaxation tracks, and also a few podcasts (particularly one called Hypnobirthing Hub, which I really liked). One of the things that I read - I believe it was in the Hypnobirthing book - is the phrase, "Birth is normal, natural, and healthy." I really liked that and it kind of became my "mantra." One of the things that the books pointed out is that fact that giving birth is unlike any other pain that people experience because it is "productive pain" or "pain with a purpose." I don't think many people would consider breaking a bone or getting a cavity filled "productive" or "natural" pain. Another thing that I focused on in my research is the idea that the amount of pain felt during labor and delivery is dramatically increased with the amount of fear the person is experiencing. When we're afraid, our bodies produce adrenaline, causing our muscles tense up. This is actually the exact opposite of what we need to do. The more relaxed we are, the more our bodies are allowed to perform their natural function, and the more endorphins are released, making the birthing process significantly less painful. (Some people even claim childbirth is possible without any pain if the person is truly relaxed or in a state of hypnosis. Although I was not at that level of relaxation (or really that close to it), the fact that I got a little break in between contractions where I felt zero pain, really made the whole process manageable. I can honestly say that there was never a time where I even considered asking for an epidural. Sure, it was challenging, and probably the hardest thing I've ever done - but after, I seriously felt invincible! ...until they started stitching me up. hahaha. but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Not only was it important to me to prepare myself mentally, I also felt it was of utmost importance to prepare myself spiritually. I knew that my body was capable of performing a natural birth, but I definitely wanted to get as much spiritual help as possible. I set the goal to attend the temple at least once a week for the final month of my pregnancy and I'm very grateful to be able to say I met that goal! I was even able to attend twice some weeks. I cannot deny the amount of peace and reassurance these temple visits gave me.
(Okay...back to the labor...)
About an hour after arriving at the hospital, (around 5 am) I was dilated to a 6. And then an hour after that I was at a 7! I was pleased with the progress I was making. (And yes, my feet were still FREEZING.) But then...I stopped making progress. A few hours later and the most intense contractions yet...and I was still at a 7!! It was so discouraging when I would ask the nurse to check me again and again and I was still at a 7. Plus, I was so so so tired!!! Stephen even played me my all-time favorite song in an effort to help wake me up..but my eyes were soooo heavy! Sometimes I would fall asleep in between contractions, which was actually bad because then, when the contraction would come, it would startle me, so I would tense up and not be relaxed like I needed to be. Switching up labor positions regularly was helpful in keeping me as awake as possible. Although I didn't mind laboring while just laying on the bed, April said that it wasn't a recommended position because it might make Lydia turn her body to be facing the wrong way. SO, instead, I used an exercise ball, tried to use a peanut ball (but unfortunately never really figured out how to make it work for me - it just felt really awkward), and hung on Stephen. Literally, like, I would put my arms around his neck and when the contraction came I would put allll of my weight (which I will admit was .5 pounds less than his weight at the time) on him. He was a champ for letting me do that, although I'm sure it was uncomfortable for him.
When the nurse was checking me (one of the times when I was still a 7...) she said that BabyGirl's head was really far down, and so was my water. She suggested having the doctor break the water (basically with a small needle) because she was convinced that that would speed things up. I was scared about that idea because I'd heard that the contractions get a lot more painful when the water is broken, but I was sick of being at a 7 and I really wanted to get things moving (again). So, I agreed. Unfortunately, the on-call doctor (because, remember, my doctor was out of town) was busy in an emergency C-section so she wasn't able to come right away. They thought she would be there soon. I admit that I did not have a very good idea of the timeframe in which things were happening...but I would NOT say the doctor came "soon." haha. And next thing we knew, she was being called away to do an emergency D&C.
She did come in to check on me really quickly before heading on to the emergency D&C, and let's just say...the first meeting did not go very well...
Looking back now, I realize that she was probably in an "emergency situation" mindset and that's probably why our first encounter went the way it did. But when the doctor came into the room...it was not what any of us were expecting. Stephen described it as feeling like she came in and "punched us in the stomach." I'd been at the hospital laboring for about 6 hours at this point, and the doctor came in, took one look at the amount of blood that I'd lost and basically said we needed to prepare ourselves for an emergency C-section. WHAT?? It was seriously out of nowhere (from my perspective anyway). This is what I remember:
The doctor came in and was talking to the nurse, I wasn't really paying that much attention. I was laying on the bed at this point working through the contractions. I could feel a contraction coming on, so I did my best to relax into it. April was great at coaching me on breathing techniques and the one I found the most useful was doing "horsey lips" along with a low humming sound when I would breathe out. So I did this and the doctor kind of stopped what she was saying looked and me and then said (I'm not really sure who she was talking to directly), "Does she not have an epidural??" Unfortunately I would not describe the doc's tone as one of amazement, nor was there any indication that she was impressed...it was more like a tone of "this girls' an idiot" haha, but I was at least happy about the fact that she'd been in the room for over a minute and she didn't even know I was doing a natural birth!!! haha! (It also goes to show that movie birth-scenes are greatly over-dramatized because not once during the entire process did I ever scream or yell mean things at Stephen, haha.)
So then the doctor says, (I think to me) "You really should get an epidural now because if we have to do an emergency C-section we won't have enough time to give you one (since it takes about 20 minutes for the medication to take effect) and if you don't have one you'll have to be put under general anesthesia and you'll have to have a machine breathing for you and your husband won't be there and you'll be totally out of it, and you won't be able to hold your baby for 20 minutes after she's born."
Okay, okay so there probably shouldn't be quotes because that is not verbatim what the doctor said, but in my extremely tired state that's what I heard.
To sum up, we had two options:
Option 1: Continue with the natural birth (no epidural) and then if an emergency C-section situation arose I would be under general anesthesia without Stephen there and unable to hold Lydia until I woke up (20-30 minutes after the birth).
Option 2: Get an epidural now, basically throw away the fact that I'd labored so long without one, and then be "more with it" in the case of emergency C-section.
But I was still so confused about where the idea that I was going to need an emergency C-section was coming from. I felt fine! But the doctor made it seem like the chances of C-section were REALLY high. I tried to ask her why she was so sure I would need a C-section.
She explained that I was loosing a lot of blood, and since Lydia's head was so far down, there was a good chance that she was blocking a lot MORE blood that might all come gushing (sorry, is that a gross word to use? haha) out when she broke my water.
She then said something along the lines of, "I'll be back in 30 minutes, you'll need to have your decision made by that time." And she left.
Youch. That was unexpected. Yes, it's true I was bleeding, but I felt 100% fine and Lydia's heartbeat had remained strong throughout the entire process so far. Even with that being said, it's safe to say she had us pretty scared.
After the initial shock subsided, we took the next logical step and had Stephen say a prayer. I can't even remember any of the words he said, but the Spirit was so strong. He was crying, so of course I was bawling. The feeling of his love for me and for Lydia, and the feeling of peace from Heavenly Father was undeniable. It was a truly special moment. After that, Stephen gave me another priesthood blessing. When he was finished, we both felt that we should go forward with the natural birth that we had planned. I had confidence that my body was capable of performing a healthy, natural birth, and I knew that if something did go wrong I was in the hands of a very capable (although maybe a little bit scary) doctor, and in the end I would be okay and so would Lydia. My mom and April also felt good about the decision, so we told the nurse that we wanted the doctor to go ahead and break my water without giving me the epidural.
30 minutes went by...and then more (again...time was really hard for me to gauge during this whole process, haha) and the doctor finally came back. (I was still only 7 cm dilated.) And, I kid you not, even though it was the same doctor...she came in the room a totally different person. She came in, sat down, and said, "Okay. I've had a chance to read over your file, it looks like you are a healthy person, and in the notes it said that you wanted to have a "natural" labor. What does "natural" mean to you?"
I quickly ran through the elements of my birth plan that Stephen and I had previously discussed. When I was finished she said, "Okay. We can do that."
It was seriously so weird. Weird isn't the right word. It was amazing, miraculous even. In the last 30+ minutes, her attitude had changed completely, and I am 100% sure it was because of the prayer and blessing that Stephen had given with the assistance of the Spirit.
The doctor broke my water and immediately I was at an 8. Thankfully there wasn't an excess of blood to require the emergency C-section (which, to be honest, I had forgotten was even a worry at that point because I felt so calm about everything). About an hour later I was at a 9...and then things started to get really exciting. haha. Since I didn't have any pain medication, I very strongly started feeling the urge to push. The doctor (or was it the nurse? I can't remember) explained to me that it's really important I not start pushing until I was dilated to a 10, because if I pushed the baby too early, her head would push against the sides of the cervix which would cause the cervix to swell, making it a lot more difficult for the baby to come out. Well, they told me this, and it makes total sense...but fighting the urge to push when your body is telling you to push?!?! Nope. Not gonna happen. I SWEAR I tried. I was trying so so so hard to do what they told me (not push) but then the urge just took over my whole body and I was helpless against it. haha. I kept asking the nurse to check me because I wanted to be at a 10 and be able to push. Although she checked me at least twice without me having progressed, I was pleasantly surprised when she informed me that BabyGirl had hair! She told me it was long enough for her to tug on it! (Since Stephen and I were both baldies when we were born I was thoroughly convinced that we would have a bald baby.) THANKFULLY, within 30 minutes I was at a 10 and I was allowed to push FOR REALS. To say that it was a relief is an understatement. The "pushing stage" was weirdly satisfying. It was this cool "becoming one with my body" moment where I just let the natural process take over. ..Sorry if i'm starting to sound total hippie, but it really is true!
Whenever I could feel that I was about to start pushing, I would announce it (haha, that seems so weird now, but at the time it didn't seem weird at all) and then one of the nurses would count to 10 and I would push the whole time. She would count to ten three times and then give me a rest. It was SO SO SO helpful to have her counting. I even thanked her for counting during one of the rest periods. (Everyone was commenting about how polite I was during labor and I'm starting to get the impression that I was more polite during labor than I am in normal life, haha!) I pushed for about 45 minutes and then, on Thursday, November 5th at 11:52 a.m., Little Lydia came right on out! I didn't realize she was gonna come out all at once like that. For some reason I thought I would push her head, and then her shoulders, and then the rest of her, but nope. Stephen said he now understands why they call it "catching the baby" because the doctor literally caught her in mid-air!
After one minute, the doctor had Stephen cut the cord (which he can't get over the crazy color of. haha.). Then they put Lydia right on my chest. She REALLY DID have hair!!!! And...she was PURPLE. Like, the craziest shade of purple I've ever seen. (The pictures don't show the true color at all.) Apparently that's normal?! I guess that's another one of those crazy things that no one ever tells you. haha. It makes sense though because she hadn't even been breathing oxygen for more than a minute. They put her on my chest and Stephen came over and we just looked at her. She wasn't crying or anything. Her eyes were closed but occasionally they would open for a second or two. Meanwhile the doctor was stitching me up and YOUCH! that was painful. She gave me a numbing shot but didn't really wait for it to kick in before she went in with the needle (which Stephen said looked very similar to a crochet hook).
They quickly took her weight and length (right there in the room) and then handed her back to me. (Sidenote: during the pushing stage we all made guesses about how much she would weigh and I guessed 8 pounds 2 ounces...turns out I was pretty dang close because Lydia weighed in at 8 pounds 4 ounces! She was also 19 inches long.) They put me on potocin at this point to help my uterus contract back down faster, and every (seemingly 10 minutes even though I think it was every hour) they would come push on my stomach to also help my uterus contract and it HURT!...Honestly I felt like that was worse than most of the contractions I'd had.
I got to hold Lydia for about an hour. I could not wrap my head around the fact that this little person had been living inside me for the last nine months. I could comprehend very little, but I was pretty dang proud of the fact that I had actually given birth without any pain medication! In a lot of the books I read they compared the feeling of giving birth without an epidural to that of completing a marathon. I'm not sure I'll ever know the feeling of having just completed a marathon...but the feeling after giving birth to Lydia was pretty exhilarating. (And no, it did not in any way increase my nonexistent desire to run a marathon, haha.)
...And after that hour passed, the last 36 hours caught up with me and I was EXHAUSTED. I was so so SO tired. Should I mention the fact that I hiked the Y the day before?? and then had about an hour and 15 minutes of sleep before laboring for 10 hours?!?! hahaha. Stephen and my mom went down to the nursery to watch Lydia as she received her first bath, and I took a nap! It was great, and very much needed. Pretty sure I fell asleep in about .2 seconds.
After a few hours they moved me to the "post-delivery" room at the hospital. When I stood up, it hit me how much blood I lost because almost immediately I felt like I was going to pass out. The doctor estimated that I'd lost 700 CCs of blood...which means nothing to me, haha, but apparently that's more than most people? I have no clue. Thankfully the nurse had a wheelchair ready for me, so she took me in that down to the other room.
That evening, we took this picture (our first "official" family photo where you can actually see Lydia's face, kind of.)
Because of the blood loss, they had me stay in the hospital for two days because they weren't sure if I would need a blood transfusion. Thankfully, I didn't. Staying at the hospital for those few days was pretty nice though, getting all the free food (haha) and knowing that there were tons of medical professionals around that could answer our many first-time-parent questions. On Saturday morning, just before noon, I was cleared to go! The nurse offered to take me out to the car in a wheelchair, but since I had walked myself in during contractions, I wanted to be able to walk myself out, too. It just felt right. (Remember that earlier comment about my pride? It applies here as well.)
TO SUM UP: Was natural birth easy? No. It was not easy. BUT, it was absolutely doable. I feel that I was able to do it because I prepared myself mentally and spiritually (there is plenty more I could have done to prepare myself mentally, like take classes, which I was too cheap to do, ha) but more importantly I had an amazing support team. Having Stephen and April and my mom (although we didn't originally think she would be in town for the birth) there was HUGE. It was because of their support and my preparation I never even considered asking for the epidural. Interestingly enough, I never even cried from the pain. There was one point during the labor where I thought maybe crying would help, so I tried to...within 30 seconds I realized that by trying to make myself cry I was scrunching up my face and causing unnecessary tension, making the labor more difficult. I quickly realized that was actually a terrible idea and then didn't have the desire to cry again. haha.
It's crazy how, looking back even just barely two weeks after the ordeal, I already have forgotten what the pain even felt like! I wish I could say the same thing about the agony of the first 6 months of my pregnancy, but unfortunately I cannot! I can honestly say that I would much rather relive a 10-hour unmedicated labor than 6 months of throwing up and feeling all-around miserable. haha. (Stephen agrees because it was so hard for him to watch me feel so crappy for 6 months and not be able to help. He really really loved that during the labor there were things that he could do to literally help lessen my pain.)
Well, if anyone made it this far I'm truly impressed! I started writing this for a few friends who asked about the birth story, but now I realize I wrote this whole thing much more for my benefit than for anyone else's. There are just so many details that I want to remember that I'm already starting to forget!
Being Lydia's mom these past two weeks has been so much fun (and, to be honest, a lot easier than I thought it would be! - Greatly in part to the fact that my mom was so kind to extend her stay so she could be with us during Lydia's first week at home - THANKS MOM, and dad!). Stephen and I always say it's amazing how entertaining Lydia is especially considering she does so little, but I'll save all that for a different post. ;)
_ _ _
han.
PS If reading birth stories is STILL your thing - even after reading this beast of a post ;) be sure to read Stephen's account (which is even better in my opinion) HERE!!!!!!!
Note: I wrote this post last Wednesday, November 4th, but hadn't added the pictures yet, so I never published it. BabyGirl is NOW HERE and I promise I'll post alllllll about her shortly, I just wanted to publish this post first, since I'd already written it. :)
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the last week+ has been hard. It really is an emotional roller coaster going each day not knowing if that will be the day that you are going to have a baby and your life will change forever. Although it's been a challenging time, thankfully there are still plenty of things to be happy about!
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the last week+ has been hard. It really is an emotional roller coaster going each day not knowing if that will be the day that you are going to have a baby and your life will change forever. Although it's been a challenging time, thankfully there are still plenty of things to be happy about!
making homemade (and delicious!) caramel apples with my friends Jess, Chels, and Melissa // watching Stephen eat a bite of persimmon for the first time // reaching 109 followers on my photography instagram account // winning the #selfieyoursandwich post for Baked Bakery Cafe and getting two free meals next time we go in!!! // going to the pumpkin patch with some of my cousins and trying to find pumpkins the size of our stomachs^^ (April is due in December) // going to the temple to do sealings with some of Stephen's extended family // my cousin, Sarah, being willing to drive me to my doctor's appointment since our car had a flat tire // Miriam treating Stephen and me to the Cannon Center for dinner with her mealplan (thanks dad! ;)) // getting BabyGirl's crib out of the box (it's not set up yet, but at least it's out of the box!) // my mom coming to town to help distract me from the fact that BabyGirl still hasn't come (even though we both thought she'd be here by now!) // the fact that even though I got rear-ended last week I'm 100% fine and the car is still safe (just has an ugly dent in the back) // EYE-LASH EXTENSIONS. Haha, so shallow, I know, and the first couple days they FREAKED me out and I thought I looked so weird, but after a few days I started really liking them and now I'm a huge fan // watching Stephen's intramurals - it's taken me a while, but I really do enjoy going to them now! haha // getting a DELICIOUS (and massive) Chipotle burrito on Halloween for only $3 (including guacamole!)
Now let's just hope BabyGirl gets here SOON!
_ _ _
han.
I am so incredibly blessed to have amazing friends and family who threw BabyGirl (and me!) TWO of the most perfect baby showers I've ever been to!
Shower #1: The Biscuit Brunch Garden Party (^^Gold Leaf Invitation)
^^Real fruit that was arranged so perfectly it looked FAKE!
The first shower was thrown by my friends Chelsee and Melissa (pictured above, on the left) with some assistance from Alyssa (right). It was in the backyard of some of Chels' extended family, which is what I would describe as a "pinterest paradise." It was BEAUTIFUL. Chels is a born event-planner and had every aspect of the shower thought through. We munched on delicious biscuits, jam, and fruit, made flower crowns, decorated swaddle-blankets, and played a variation of this game with everything relating to baby items. It was the perfect sunny afternoon surrounded by friends and the beautiful outdoors. I loved being able to catch up with so many friends that I hadn't seen in a little while (and missed friends who were unable to make it!).
SHOWER #2: Cream Puffs and Baby Stuffs (baha. Better title suggestions are encouraged)
Exactly a week later, my cousin/best friend/ex-roommate (she loves slashes ;)) Madi, threw me (and BabyGirl) ANOTHER shower that was equally as perfect! Madi is currently living in New Jersey as her husband has an internship out there for a few months, but she came to Utah for one weekend and hosted my shower while she was here. I'm sure it was so stressful, but she successfully pulled it off without a hitch! (And had a lot of help from other family members which I know she appreciated!) Madi is an extremely organized and detail-oriented person, which is what made this shower so great! (To read Madi's blogpost that includes more details about the shower, look HERE. ) This baby- celebration was primarily for family and it was so much fun seeing and catching up with family (from both Stephen's side and mine) that I don't get to see all-that-often.
^^ We didn't get a picture of everyone who came to the shower, but we did snap this pic of the girl-cousins on my mom's side of the family. I love having so many cousins with me here in Utah!
^^Me and Mad, my best friend//cousin//ex-roommate//baby-shower planner extraordinaire!
The food (creme puffs with dipping sauces, yogurt parfaits, and two different kinds of delicious quiche), the decor, and the games were all top-notch. My favorite game we played was one where people had to identify events that took place in either Stephen's life or mine. Thankfully I got them all right! (Although I almost missed one, but luckily changed it at the last second!) Stephen's sister, Sarah, and my sister, Miriam, both tied with getting all but two correct. How well can YOU do??
This is embarrassing..but I failed to take a picture with my mom who came out from California for the shower! (#daughterfail) THANKS FOR COMING, MAMA, EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T HAVE A PICTURE TO PROVE YOU WERE THERE! ;)
There's no question that BabyGirl is loved, and so am I! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!
_ _ _
han.