Wow. TWO. My youngest, and last child turns TWO today. I’m a hot mess of emotions right now, to be honest with you. This girl right here…
Let’s just say that God knew I needed a little girl in my life. She is, in short, amazing. And to be honest with you…her birth story is pretty spectacular, too. It had to be.
You see, baby girls due date was December 28th. If you just checked the date, then you already know that today is not December 28th. Sweet girl arrived 6 weeks early…
I had gone in for a routine 34-week prenatal check-up on Tuesday, November 11, 2014. As I was sitting all cold and uncomfortable in one of those super sexy sac cloths they give you, that barely cover the giant baby belly, on my midwife’s table/bed thing, my (amazing) midwife came into the room with that look. The look that says, this is my third time working with you and your babies, so I know something is wrong, sort of look. She promptly informed me that my blood pressure numbers were high for the 2nd week in a row (which, if you knew me and how my body handles pregnancy, you would know that this is not the norm for me), and that I would have to pee in a jug for 24 hours. Yaaaaayyyyyy.
So I followed her orders, and when I dropped my pee-jug off at the lab the following morning, I also had some blood work done. Not 3 hours after I dropped off my “pee-jug”, did I get a call from my midwife saying that the numbers looked a little high and I needed to come in after lunch to see the doctor, because it looked like I could have preeclampsia. I started getting nervous. That’s a big word, and it sounded scary, and I had zero idea what it meant. So, of course, Mountain Man and I took to the worlds leading expert on all things, and Googled it.
Enter panic mode.
It was at that point, I received yet another phone call. This time from the doctor I was scheduled to see that very afternoon. She told me that I would be skipping our appointment and needed to head straight to the hospital. My numbers were alarmingly high and she concluded that I most definitely had severe preeclampsia. (As if regular preeclampsia wasn’t bad enough)
So we arranged for my husbands dad to come to the house while the boys were napping, so my husband and I could head to the hospital for some tests. Then my midwife calls back. “Pack your bag”, she says. “You most likely will not be going home until after you have this baby…start thinking if you’d like to be transferred to Charlotte or Winston.” If I wasn’t panicked before, I was most definitely flipping out now. So I did was any normal person would do in this situation. I packed my bags, and we headed to…Chick-fil-a. That’s right. I was not about to get stuck being admitted only to be told, “No food for you!”(Anyone else say this in the tone of the Soup Nazi? Just me? Ok, moving on…)
Thanks but no thanks. This mama was hungry, and I needed to eat before it turned into a hangry situation.
When I finally arrived, they immediately whisked me to a room to do an ultrasound, where they determined that baby girl was transverse (sideways across my belly). They took more blood samples and tested my blood pressure, and the numbers kept rising. All the while, I’m sitting here with ZERO side effects. I literally did not have ANY of the typical symptoms of someone dealing with preeclampsia. I’m a medical conundrum. So they decide that I will need to be induced, and they injected me with the first steroid shot before loading me into an ambulance and hauling my tail down the mountain to Winston.
The hubby stayed behind to be with the boys, since I would be on bed rest for a few days. He would get things arranged at home and then head down the mountain to be with me, for our daughters arrival. I called my parents (who, thankfully, only live a few miles from the hospital I was being transferred to), and they said they would meet me at the hospital.
Since I was on bedrest during my stay, I wasn’t able to eat real food, or get up to use the bathroom. FYI… Ladies who have ever pooped during childbirth, ALL dignity is lost when you are on bedrest and a male nurse has to take care of your bed pan situation. All. Dignity….Lost.
Annnywho…moving right along. After I arrived, I contacted my good friend, MB. (We became close after she was my Doula when J-Man was born, and again when I had the Nugget) So I wanted to let her know my situation, so she could be praying. The doctors had told me that if she didn’t turn by noon on Friday, they were going in to get her. So she gave me some great ideas of how to get baby girl to flip. Once the nurses got approval from the doctors to try my Doula’s suggestions, they (hesitantly) allowed me to proceed (which was a flippin’ miracle, considering this hospital was not known to be midwife / doula friendly).
I was hooked up to all sorts of IV’s to help keep baby girl cozy while we waited, and after the 2nd steroid shot on Thursday, and a follow up ultrasound on Friday, we discovered that the things we attempted to get her to turn had worked. Baby girl was head down! I will spare you the gruesome details of the induction. I was induced with both boys, but that was at the end of my pregnancy. Being induced when your body is NOT ready, is a whole different ball game, and not something I care to re-live again. We will fast forward past that part. I WILL say, that my amazing friend MB decided she needed to be there for my third delivery, so she hightailed it and hour and a half away to be with me. (I love her)
After nearly 24 hours of extremely difficult and painful labor, I felt the need to push. When my nurse checked me, she said I was still at 5cm (exactly where I was 6 hours prior). Are you freaking kidding me?! I couldn’t go on much longer. She decided then would be a good time to inform me that the magnesium drip I was on (to keep me from seizing from the preeclampsia) was actually working against the pitocin. I swear, if I had had the strength, I would have throat punched that nurse. You couldn’t have told me this 12…no, 24 hours ago?! So I did it. I chose the epidural.
Now, this may not seem like a huge deal to most of you. In fact, you may be thinking to yourself, “why didn’t you get the epidural to start with?!” Well, I am deathly afraid of needles IN MY BACK, and I never had an epidural with my boys, so I didn’t want one with this baby…until now. So I opted for it, and they brought in the anesthesiologist. I’m gonna stop here and say, if you’ve NEVER had an epidural, be sure to let them know this and request that a student NOT do yours. Get the big kahuna in there to do it.
Bless his heart, but the young man who did my first epidural was awful. I get that they have to learn, but seriously. NOT ON ME. It took him 25 minutes. That’s 25 minutes of me having to “sit still” during the most painful contractions of my life. My legs got sorta numb, with jolts of pain occasionally shooting down one leg, and my abdomen (the part that feels the most pain), was completely and utterly not-numbed. After several minutes of painful contractions, Mountain Man had had enough. He stormed out and found the nurse and demanded the head anesthesiologist come in and fix this. (I love him)
So he did, and it took him less than a minute. I looked at him and told him he was my best friend. And I meant it.
All became quiet. They dimmed the lights. The awesome epidural guy said I should start to feel pressure but no pain, and he left. The doctors came in and told me to try to rest, and they would be back in about an hour to check me. I told them I was feeling a bit of pressure and they said that it was a contraction, and walked out. MB was almost asleep in the chair next to me, and Mountain Man had followed the doctors out of the room, to make a few phone calls to family and friends who were wanting to know my status. I started to drift off to sleep. Finally.
Until the nurse walked in. She started messing with the fetal heart rate monitor that was strapped to my belly. The heartbeat was gone. They couldn’t find it. Y’all, she moved that monitor everywhere on my stomach and it. was. gone. I started to panic. No way did I just go through all of that to have my baby’s heart rate drop. I said a quick prayer in my head and then… I felt something. On the side of my completely numbed legs, I felt something. So I cautiously lifted up the blanket only to find my baby girl laying there! I was so numb that I couldn’t feel her coming out of me, and God allowed me to feel her touch my leg with her little hand. The nurse called for the NICU staff, and lifted her up immediately, calling her time of birth.
I couldn’t believe it. I missed my daughters birth. My husband missed our daughters birth. The world missed our daughters birth. It was just her and God. And it was in that moment I knew. I knew that I had a very special little girl. A Little Miss Independent.
I frantically tried calling my husbands phone, with no answer. Finally, after several minutes, MB ran out of the room to find him, so he could see our baby girl before they had to whisk her off to the NICU.
I’m telling you guys, when a preemie is born in that hospital, it becomes a well oiled machine. They were in and out with baby girl in under 15 minutes it seemed. Shortest visit I had with any of my babies right after they were born. After they took her to the NICU, all I was left with for the next 24 hours was a piece of paper with her foot prints on it.
The rest is history, as they say. Little Miss T and I spent the next (almost) month of her life in that hospital, while Mountain Man was 90 miles away with our two boys. We told our story on a day by day basis (sans pictures…Mountain Man was already super protective of his baby girl and didn’t want any pictures posted of her until we got her home), and had so many prayers going up for her. Our stay was a crazy mixture of stress, worry, trust, hope, sleeplessness, snuggles, smiles and tears. But through it all, God was there.
And here we are…2 years later. With a perfectly healthy, happy, spirited, loving, spunky little girl. A girl who thinks her daddy and big brothers are the best things in the world.
Who has her own unique fashion sense, and believes that a tutu goes with anything. (I don’t disagree)
Who has the biggest smile, and wildest hair, and the bluest eyes (eyes that mama prayed for since before her biggest brother was ever born, thank you very much. Don’t tell me God doesn’t hear even our tiniest prayers).
A girl who has turned our world upside down in the most beautiful, wonderful way possible. So today, we wish the happiest 2nd birthday to our beautiful, sweet girl. We cannot wait to see the amazing things God has in store for your life, baby girl!
