Introducing Ms. Lily: Lily's Birth Story

All the fun and excitement began on Monday, July 5th. Our due date had come and gone and I was convinced that Punkin was never going to come and that we would have to be induced on July 8th. The day before, July 4th I had had a few "real" contractions, but they were few and FAR between, like several hours apart, so I didn't think anything of it and didn't tell anyone about it. I didn't want to get my hopes up and it turn up to be nothing so I thought nothing of it. The previous week Tom and I had walked miles around our the little town we live in and every evening I would come home and would then have contractions for a few hours, but they always went away, which was very irritating.

Tom's parents came to visit us Sunday night and were planning on going home Monday evening. We stayed up late playing cards and the guys made plans to cut down two dead trees in our yard the next day. Well I woke up at about 7am on Monday morning and noticed that I was feeling kind of crampy. I went to the bathroom for about the 5th time already and then laid back down to try to get a couple more hours of sleep. I hadn't slept very well that night. I never went back to sleep. I started noticing that these "cramps" were taking on noticable pattern. So I decided to time them with my niftly Iphone app. After about 30 min of timing I determined that I was having contractions that were about 2-3 min apart and were lasting about 35 seconds. Tom woke up and was getting ready to go chop down trees, so I let him know what was going on. We weren't sure what to do. They tell you to go to the hospital when your contractions are 3-5 min apart and lasting about a minute. Mine weren't lasting that long so we decided to wait a while. Tom went and let his parents know that maybe today wouldn't be a good day to chop down trees, so instead we got the house all cleaned up. By we I mean everybody else while I delegated jobs. We then played cards. At about 11am my contractions were getting pretty uncomfortable and were lasting about 45 sec, so I decided to call the on call dr. My dr's office was closed that day for a holiday. That dr told me to go to the hospital to get checked out...so away we went.

Once at the hospital, we were put in triage and found out that I was 1cm 80% effaced. It was about noon. I was told you had to be 3-4 cm to be admitted. They monitored me for an hour and came back. I was still the same. We were then sent to go walk the halls for an hour. We came back and they checked me and I was still the same. By this time I was definetly uncomfortable, so they gave me some percosets and told me to go home and take a nap. When I woke up if my contractions were gone then it was false labor. If not and they were stronger and took my breath away then come back. Contractions were still 2-3 min apart.

We went home and got home at about 5pm. I tried to take a nap. I think I only slept like 45 min. We finished up a few more things I thought of around the house. At about 9pm the medicine had worn off and the contractions were taking my breath away so we headed back off to the hospital. When we got there we found out that I was the SAME! I had made no progress. I cried. By this time I was feeling lousy and to find out I had made no progress at all was disheartening. So, we went through the same routine. They kept me for an hour. We walked the halls for an hour and I still hadn't made any progress. We were sent home a second time. This time I was told to go home take a warm bath and come back when the contractions made me cry. This is not exactly what I was wanting to hear. At this point all I could think about was that I couldn't wait to get an epidural.

We went home at midnight and I followed the instructions. At one point I told Tom I was spending the night in the tub because it helped take the pain away, but after about an hour it wasn't helping anymore. I got out and went to bed. I just remember laying there with Tom and crying because it hurt so bad. He kept telling me ok lets go back and I kept telling him I didn't want to because I couldn't handle getting sent home again. Finally at about 3am we decided to go back. That was the longest car ride of my life. I could feel every bump in the road. The only way for me to handle the pain was to breath very loudly through my contractions. We finally made it there and got checked and I was 2 1/2cm!! The dr had told the nurses that if I had made any progress at all that they could admit me! So we were admitted to the hospital at 4am!!!

The nurse came back and checked me at 8am and I was only 3cm. It had been 4 hours and I had only progressed 1/2 a cm! I had to get to 4cm to get my epidural. At this point I thought I was going to die. There was no way I could last another 4 hours to get another cm. Then the nurse told me they were going to start me on Pitocin so that my contractions would be even stronger so that I would progress. When she left the room I lost it. The contractions were coming one on top of the other and I was getting NO relief inbetween. The top of my utereus felt like it was in a constant knot. At 9am the nurse came back in and told me they were going to go ahead and give me the epidural and just hope that I had progressed because a lady down the hall was going in for a c-section and the anesthesiologist was going to be gone for quite a while. This was glorious news to my ears!

I got my epidural and life was good!!!!!! I couldn't even tell when I was having contractions anymore. The epi didn't hurt at all. All I felt was a little pinch like a shot you would get a the dentist. I was still only 3cm. An hour later the dr came in to break my water and I was 4cm. I then decided it was time for a nap since I hadn't slept since Sunday night and it was now Tuesday morning.

I slept for about an hour and then woke up because I was feeling an urge that felt like I needed to go to the bathroom with every contraction. We called the nurse in and she checked me and I was 8cm! I had progressed 4cm in an hour! I guess my body just needed to relax to be able to do its job. (I had told Tom weeks before that I was afraid that this was going to happen. I don't handle pain very well.) The nurse said she would come back in 30 min to check again. 30 min later I was 9 1/2! 15 min later it was time to push!!!!

Tom and the nurse were the only ones in there for the majority of the pushing. I pushed for about an hour. At one point Tom asked if the dr was going to be there for the delivery. The nurse told him that we had to get to a certain point and then she would make the call for delivery and then a bunch of people would be coming in. I could tell that we were getting close and then all of a sudden I saw the nurse with the phone calling for delivery. She then came back and told me that the dr was in helping with a c-section and would be there in 5 min. I was told not to push until she got there. AHHHHH!!!!!! Do you know how hard it is not to push! We found out later that the dr literally came running down the hall. Once she got there I pushed once and Punkin's head was out! Then the rest of her followed and our beautiful Lily Mae was born at 12:41pm July 6th! She weighed 8lbs 2 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She scored 9/9 on her apgars and from the very start has been beautiful and healthy. We went for her two week check up and they said she is absolutely perfect. She weighed 8lbs 13 oz and was 22 inches long. She is growing like a weed!

We are totally in love with her and can not imagine life without her! It has been an amazing, life changing, challenging 2 1/2 weeks.

(PS: any of my pregnant friends that plan on breastfeeding I have some tips for you for the first couple of weeks! Just ask me!)

2 more weeks!

We have no more than two weeks from today until we get to meet our little Punkin. We are hoping it is sooner, but it is all up to Punkin. I had hoped to be better at updating since I haven't been working, but we have been having issues with our internet at home. The house is finally complete! No more remodeling for a VERY long time!

Everything is ready for Punkin to arrive and believe me I am so ready! This heat is killing me! So far I feel like I have had a pretty easy pregnancy, physically, until this last month. Even with the back pain I had earlier, once I started some therapy that cleared itself up. This last month has been challenging. My last week of school I woke up and felt like I could literally breath fire! Heartburn has been killer. My legs get so restless at night that quite often I can't sleep. (and the next person that tells me that it is just getting me ready for the baby, prepare to be throat punched) I have had some swelling, mostly my ankles. There have been a few days that they have been so swollen that it hurts to walk. I think my love of salt had something to do with that...so since then I have been trying not to eat overly salty foods...which means no more pickles :( Since I have cut back on salt and kept my feet up for a few days the swelling has gone down. So far the doctor says I haven't made any progress. I guess I have made a good home for Punkin and he just isn't wanting to come out.

Here are few things that I am looking forward to Post Pregnancy:
1. Meeting Punkin and being a mommy
2. COMFORTABLE sleep - yes I know it will only be in about 2 hour time slots, but at least I will be comfortable!
3. Being able to roll over during the night without feeling like my pelvis will break in half.
4. Being able to breath again
5. No more heartburn
6. Not waddling
7. Being able to take Ibuprofen (Tylenol does nothing for me)
8. Being able to reach my feet again
9. Being able to get off the couch without feeling like an old woman
10. Not having braxton hicks contractions all the time, I mean really, they are just annoying and don't do anything.

Yes, I realize most of these are selfish reasons, but after 9 months I am ready!
This is just for anybody out there that was ever wondering. Here are a few things that it is NOT ok to say to a pregnant woman. (especially the further along she is)
1. Are you sure your not having twins? (Yes I'm sure! Thank you for calling me huge!)
2. You look like your going to explode! (Thanks, once again you called me huge!)
3. Don't tell us your horror stories of labor! Everyone is different. We can compare stories after the baby has been born, but telling us before will only make us worry about things.
4. Don't make comments on our swollen feet. Thats just not nice.
5. Just don't make comments about how huge we are. You wouldn't say those things to a nonpregnant woman, so don't say them to a pregnant woman. No woman I have ever met enjoys being called huge. We know we are huge! Your comments don't make us feel better.

Okay, that is all, can you tell I'm ready to have this baby? ;)

Month 8!

We are now in the 8th month! We are getting so close! The last few weeks we have spent finishing up the house and the nursery. Last week we had new carpet installed and all of our baby furniture came in. We quickly set up all of our furniture because we had lots of friends and family that came in to town for our baby showers this past weekend. We had so much fun at the showers and came home with LOTS of goodies. Thank you to everyone for thinking of us!

This is week is my last week of school and I do not plan to work until after having the baby. I am so glad that I will have my last month off to rest and relax and get things in order around the house before Punkin makes his debut. I am thinking that Punkin will arrive late and Tom is thinking Punkin will arrive early. Only time will tell! Next week starts we will begin our weekly dr visits! I can't believe how fast time has gone by.

Here are some pics of the nursery.

28 weeks 5 days

We are finally in the 3rd trimester!!!! Punkin is doing great. We had another u/s today just to check things out and make sure my placenta had moved up. Punkin is measuring right on track. He weighs 2lbs. 15oz. He is still sitting head up. I can tell he is getting stronger! Kicks and punches are getting quite strong.


Punkin has decided that his favorite place to lay is on my kidney! Last weekend I started having quite a bit of tenderness on my right side. Sometimes it got pretty sharp. We went to the dr on Monday and she said she thinks it could be that he is compressing the tube that connects my kidney to my bladder. This can make it feel like you have a kidney stone, but actually you don't it is just baby compressing that tube. They also did an u/s on my kidneys today, but I won't find out the results to that until Monday. She said if it is baby then there isn't really anything I can do about it other than when I am resting or at home try to lay on my left side to try to shift the weight off of my right side. She doesn't think it is an infection or anything because I haven't been running fever or throwing up, so thats good. At the u/s today we did find out that Punkin's head is on the right side of my belly. I guess he thought my kidney looked like a good pillow. Sometimes when the pain gets pretty bad I try to push him over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't....Here are some u/s pics!

foot

So it's been a while...

I know I haven't been very good at keeping this up, but I'm going to try to be better. We have been VERY busy this last month. Tom and I have been working furiously on our house. The walls in the kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway are finally done!!! except for a few baseboards that need to go back on. We got them textured and painted and they look great! All thanks to our great friend Mike. If it wasn't for him I don't know what we would have done. Then we started working on Punkin's room, which is now all painted. Hopefully in about a month we will have all new carpet throughout the house and we can finally start putting Punkin's room together. We can't wait to get the crib set up!

Punkin has been busy growing! At our last dr's appt he thought it would be funny to hide behind my belly button. The nurse kept looking and looking for the heartbeat but couldn't find it until she finally ran the wand over my belly button. Even then it was really soft and she had to turn up the volume on her doppler. Luckily, Punkin was kicking me so I knew he was in there, just being ornery. We have another dr's appt on Monday and from here on out we will start going every two weeks. We should have our last u/s in two weeks, also. On Sunday I will officially be in my third trimester!!! Woohoo!!!! I have graduated from physical therapy. They decided that since I was doing so well that I could probably manage my pain with doing all my exercises at home and by doing that it would cost me less money :) So far I have been doing pretty well. I can't believe that we are only about 3 months away from meeting Punkin. We are so excited. I promise to try to do a better job of keeping the blog updated. :) I will post a pic of the nursery later. The computer is not being agreeable right now.

Physical Therapy

Well, I started PT this week. Let me just clarify a little about my back pain. I don't want anyone thinking that I'm just a wimp (even tho I am). It's not just normal, o my back is tired and if I sit down I will feel better, pain. It is sharp, shooting, stabbing pain mostly in my right hip and quite often shooting down my right leg towards my ankle. It has been so bad at times that after school, I can hardly walk because it hurts so bad.

Ok, so I met with my physical therapist on Monday and we went over all my symptoms, pain, etc. She made me do a lot of stretching tests to figure out exactly where my pain is coming from. She said that my pain is coming from my SI joint, which is the joint where your tailbone meets your pelvis, basically. What happens when you are pregnant is that all of these hormones make all your joints and muscles loosen up so the baby has room to grow. You also have a lot of nerve endings down there too, including the sciatic nerve. Mine have loosened up too much and my joints are moving around too much and that is why I am in a lot of pain.

So then, she gave me a nice back rub on my right side :) Then she made me do a lot of modified pilate stretches. Our goal is to tighten up my core muscles so that my joints aren't moving around as much, thus creating less pain. I am suppose to do all of my stretches at least once a day at home and if I have time twice a day. Then she hooked me up to this electrode thingy that made my back tingle. It felt so good and they turned the lights down and I almost fell asleep. The electrode thingy causes more blood flow to the area and it also acts as a pain blocker to that area. I must say that the entire next day I felt amazing! My back felt better than it has in forever! I went back Wednesday and I got my back rub, did my stretches, hooked up to the electrode thingy and she twisted me into a pretzel. She said that one of my discs in my lower back was twisted so she fixed it by twisting me into a pretzel. It didn't hurt it was just really awkward and she fixed it so thats good. Right now I will be going twice a week and we will just see how it goes.

O and by the way we finally picked out first names!!!!! We aren't telling tho, so it will be a while before you know what they are. We will tell you that the names start with the letters T and L. We would love to hear your guesses! Now for middle names......

21 Weeks!

Ok, so we had another drs appointment yesterday. Everything went GREAT! Got to hear Punkin again. Heart rate was 152. Punkin is becoming very active, at least I can now feel how active he is being. Tom has been able to feel Punkin moving for the last couple of weeks. My dr was really surprised when we told her. She said it was kinda early for dad to be feeling it too. I guess Punkin just knows that we both needed some reassurance that everything was going good in there. My dr has decided to go ahead and start me on physical therapy for my back. I told her I have been very conscious of not crossing my legs or leaning to one side, but at the end of the day feel like I am doing this weird limp/waddle thing and its not because my belly is that big. It's because my back is KILLING me! So I get to start on Monday. I'm kind of excited. Anything that will help will be wonderful.
We had tons of questions for her this time around about things the specialist had told us that we didn't feel like he had explained very well. She basically told us that the specialist is there to give us the worst case scenario. She said they are usually pretty good about not freaking people out, but with everything that we have been through this last year it's kinda hard not to get freaked out about smaller stuff. She said she is not concerned at all about my cervix being incompetent since I have had one d&c and am not showing any signs of complications. We are only going to do one more u/s at 30 weeks to make sure the placenta has moved up and she's not worried about my cyst. She said my placenta is low lying because my uterus is not that big and everyone's is low lying at that point anyways. As your uterus grows, the placenta moves up. That's just how it works and she couldn't even remember the last time she did a c-section due to a placenta previa. So whew! We feel much better now!

17week4day glamour shots!

Ok well, this pic of me is a couple weeks old. It was taken at 15 weeks. I am currently 17 weeks 4 days. I started feeling Punkin move about a week ago! Best feeling ever! He likes to have a party around 3am. Thats usually when I have to get up and go to the bathroom. When I lay back down I guess he gets excited because there is more room to move. Then I get excited and can't go back to sleep.
We had two very good appointments today. The first with my regular dr. We got to hear Punkin's heartrate which was in the 160s. He was moving around quite a bit so she had to chase him around my belly. I told Tom that he was being ornery just like his daddy! Dr. came in and said I was measuring right along where I should be. I am no longer allowed to cross my legs or shift my weight back and forth do to my sciatic nerve being compressed. This has started just in the last week or so. Hopefully doing this will help. She said if it got to where it was too painful or I couldn't walk they would start me on physical therapy. Let's hope that it doesn't get that bad. So far it has only been half a day and I'm having trouble not crossing my legs.

We then had our appointment with the perinatal specialist this afternoon. To the side you can see two profile pics of Punkin's face. I think he looks like he is making a monkey face in the second one. The u/s was amazing. We could see so much and we could see him moving around. She said he was actually measuring about 18weeks 1day, which would put our due date on June 29th. Since it is so close to our original due date though they just left it at July 4th. He is 5.5 inches long and weighs 1/2 a pound. The technician kept trying to take pics of different angles of his heart and he was being stubborn, so she couldn't get a good pic. She then said she was going to try to get him to move and started pushing up and down on my belly with the "magic wand." I almost laughed out loud just because it seemed kinda bizarre. He still wouldn't move, so I suggested maybe I go to the bathroom because I can feel him move more afterwards. So I did, and when she started the scan again you could see him going crazy! It was funny and she was able to get her pics. We also got to see images in 3-d which looked really weird. Talk about looking like an alien! But you could see him moving around better with the 3-d. It looked like he was sucking his thumb and then we saw him rub his face and kick his legs. We got to bring home a DVD. I think we have watched it at least 5 times since we have been home. Dr. came in and said the baby looks great. No concerns with anything they are seeing with Punkin.....






Feet

Hands

I happen to be another matter....of course!

It looks like my placenta is lying pretty low at this point. He said they weren't real concerned with it because it would probably correct itself. If it doesn't that means a c-section.

He was also concerned because I have had a D&C before and sometimes when you have had one your cervix starts opening up before it should, which I think they call it an incompetent cervix. So he said he would just recommend that my dr monitor me to make sure all is well. This would mean drs visits every 2-3 weeks. If something were to start to go wrong that would mean bedrest.

He also noticed the cyst on my ovary and is going to recommend that we monitor that to make sure that it doesn't get any bigger. He said it is pretty close to my cervix too so his concern is that it might rupture. Monitoring that would mean u/s's once a month. Tom and I have decided that it may be hard NOT to find out what Punkin is with all these u/s. We just hope no one slips up and tells us.

I have decided that there really isn't anything I can do about these extra things I'm being monitored for so I'm just going to give everything to God and let Him worry about it. If there is anything I have learned this past year it is that I am not in control and whatever is in God's plan for me and Punkin will happen. I will pray for everything to continue to be fine, for Punkin to continue to grow big and strong and for both of our health and well being, but I'm not going to loose sleep about it or think about it too much other than in prayer. Thank you so much to the many of you that are doing the same. We love you all so much! and we hope we can show you our DVD!

3-d pic

13 weeks 3 days

We had our first appointment with my dr last Wednesday! I was so relieved to finally get to see her and not just the nurse. We got to hear the heartbeat again which was 155. Dr. said I am measuring just fine. I am now in my 2nd trimester! She said that all fear of another miscarriage and partial molar should be gone now that we have gotten to this point. She also said that I am no longer considered high risk anymore! She is not concerned at all with the cyst I have on my ovary. She said they are pretty common during pregnancy. They are referring us to a perinatal specialist. When they told us this at my last appointment it kind of freaked me out, but they are not concerned with anything they are seeing with Punkin. The referral is because of my past history and since insurance will cover it, it will be another measure of just covering all of our bases and making sure everything is fine. It should just be a one time appointment. She reassured us several times that she expects that they will not have any major recommendations and tell us that everything is going great. We will get a level 2 ultrasound which is a lot more high tech than the ones we have been getting. I don't have to drink all of that water! We will also get a DVD of the u/s! That appointment has been set up for about 4 weeks from now.

The Ultrasound:

We also had another u/s the same day as our appointment. We had a new u/s tech which we loved! She was so much better at explaining everything to us and what she was looking at, measuring, etc. For those that don't know, when going in to have an u/s you have to drink 32oz. of water an hour before your appoinment. Well, our appointment was at 1:30. I hadn't gone to the bathroom since about 11, so you can imagine what I was feeling like. Well...they didn't call us back until 2:15. I almost couldn't walk back to the room and when I did walk I felt like I was waddling. It was awful, but as soon as she started the scan it made all my discomfort worth it. At first she was just measuring my uterus and hadn't zoomed in on Punkin yet. Then she changed the view and all of a sudden a little hand popped up on the screen like it was waving to us. It was SO cool! You could see all five tiny little fingers! Then it quickly disappeared. She zoomed in some more and we could see a little arm and fingers. Then she showed us Punkin and pointed out his spine and his little legs and his little belly. Then she zoomed in to take measurements of the heart. This time instead of just seeing a little flicker you could actually see the heart muscles moving. It was SO amazing. He kept moving when she was trying to measure his heart. Ornery like his daddy! Then very last she zoomed in on his face and we could make out a little nose and mouth. I am just so amazed at how fast Punkin has developed, from seeing him as just a little tiny blob, to a little bigger blob to now actually looking like a baby. God is so amazing and we feel so blessed. I can't wait to see the differences in four weeks. Here are the pics from this last u/s.

The first pic is of Punkin's profile. His head is on the left and then his little belly is on the right.
The second pic is the close up of Punkin's face. His head is on the right and his belly is sticking up in the air on the left. If you look close you can see his little nose and mouth.