Lucy Grace's Birth Story

On August 23, 2012 at 1:46 pm we welcomed Lucy Grace into our life and our hearts.

7lbs, 12 oz and 20.5 inches long and she changed us in an instant.

Here is Lucy's story.

We were scheduled to be induced at 6am on August the 23rd. We didn’t really want to go the induction route but my OB highly suggested it. I ended up starting to feel labor contractions early Thursday morning. We ended up going to the hospital at 1:30am, a couple hours before my induction. I was in a ton of pain.  They asked if I wanted an epidural and I said hopefully I was far enough along that I could go without. They checked me and I was only 4cm. I was devastated. I was in more pain by the minute. I soon agreed to get the epidural and I have no regrets about that decision. Shortly after getting the epidural Lucy’s heart rate started to drop, nurses ran into the room, stabbed me with a shot of something and made me flip from side to side (while totally numb waist down) to get her heart rate up. The shot slowed my contractions down and then labor stalled for awhile. I got stuck at 7cm for a number of hours. By 9 am I was 9cm dilated and then by 10 am I was a full 10 cm dilated. We started practice pushing. I was going on 24 + hours of no sleep at this point and nearly fell asleep numerous times between pushing. I was having a lot of contractions but we had to skip every other one because after each push session her heart rate would drop. It’s really hard to push when you are numb from the waist down because you have no idea if you are doing it right or not. I pushed for a total of 3 hours. Into the 2nd hour my OB said that there was a good chance that I could be getting a C-Section because things were not advancing. I was to be prepared for an emergency C-section and things would happen very quickly if it came to that.  Things started to pick up but my OB told me that she was going to have to assist with the delivery and use the vacuum. Everyone got in place for delivery and at this point I had regained some feeling in my legs which helped a lot but I didn’t feel any pain. I was able to deliver Lucy on my own with my own body. The OB did use a vacuum to help get her out and had to give me a small episiotomy and I had 4th degree tears. I feel lucky that we were still able to have the delivery that I wanted even if it has come much differently then I imagined.






Being a new mom is so much harder then I ever could have prepared myself for. But this is my heart, and I'm so in love.

38 weeks and hitting the wall

This blog post isn't going to be the typical update with the bullet points like the previous ones have been. As the title indicates I've kind of hit the wall and am just kind of over things at this point and need to break out of the box of doing things the same way.  So please indulge me my some what random and scattered final thoughts on pregnancy. 

We've made it past the 1st and 2nd trimester. We got through the initial 13 weeks in the "safe zone" and had our 20 week ultrasound where they check all the parts to let you know that they are working as they should. And then you have the 3rd trimester and reaching 37 weeks and being "full term".  And then all the titles stop and you just have to wait until you hit your due date or maybe you have bad aim and you miss your due date and just keep going. I think the weeks after 37 weeks need to have an appropriate name assigned to them to portray how annoying they are. Cause man are they annoying. That speeding train that I felt like I was on has now stopped and I'm pretty sure something must be on the tracks because we are NOT moving anymore.

I'm really lucky in that my body still feels great and I'm not as uncomfortable as I'm sure many women are so it isn't that part of me that hit the wall. As much as I am so excited to meet her I also realize that I've had her with me (literally) for the last 9 months and I will actually have to share her with people, you know like with her father for example, once she is out in the big ol' world so not having the closeness makes me a wee bit sad and so that part of it isn't what has made me hit the wall either.

I think the thing that finally made me hit the wall (see I finally got to the point) was just thinking about how she could be here any moment. And after you've had that thought for about a million moments and the occasional comment about "you haven't had that baby yet?" it just gets really hard NOT to think about it all the time. Because trying to not think about it right now is about as easy as NOT thinking about food when you are starving and haven't eaten in 12 hours. 

Enough with my ranting, on to the good stuff. Or at least the stuff where I laugh at myself because that is all you can do at this point. Example:

38 week bump picture and I am the pinnacle of maternity fashion by wearing my husband's basketball shorts in these pictures. Yep, I never thought I would be that girl that started to raid her husband's clothes but comfort is key and pregnant in heels I am not.

 In other news, my husband has been practicing his swaddling so that he is a swaddling champ once she does decide to grace us with her presence. During that practice we had a silly moment where he decided to swaddle me with one of our large blankets. I was laughing so hard I was crying and thought I was going to laugh this little girl right out. Obviously that didn't work but hubby is a swaddling pro now and should feel quite confident with his skills after having a subject like me to deal with. Good job babe :)