Makenna's Birth

We were in total shock at the news that we had another sweet baby on the way. Mallory was 4months old when I got the positive pregnancy test. I was ecstatic but scared. Mallory was in physical therapy and was seeing a neurologist. The neurologist insisted that there was a 99% chance that the same injury would happen with the new baby and that I should demand a c-section. I just took her word for it. Never thought to do any research on my own. Silly me, always trusting medical professionals. (I know, I know I'm working on it!) We had another calm pregnancy. Just tiring, because ofcourse I had an infant to take care of. Billy was working two to three jobs depending on the week and he was also exhausted. Both of us were eager to meet the new baby! But not as eager as she was to meet us. LOL
At 33 1/2 weeks I went into spontaneous premature labor. We had been at church that night, and when we got home I just could not sleep. Billy and Mallory went to bed and I stayed up doing dishes and cleaning the house. (anyone who knows me can tell you that was not normal....I hate cleaning during regular hours. LOL ) I finally went to bed around 4 am and woke up to feed and change Mallory, then dozed until 10am. When I woke up at 10am I lost my mucus plug, and contractions were 5-7 minutes apart. I called Billy home from work, and we went to the OB office. They monitored me and then rushed me off to the hospital! The nurses started me on the meds to stop labor but it didn't work and by noon I was already dialated to a 6. The OB on call (at least one I knew this time....) came in to ask me whether I wanted to have the c-section or not. He told me there was no way of knowing if the baby was big or little, and that if it was his child he would go ahead with the section. I was in active labor and not thinking straight, so I agreed to the section. The OB left to get scrubbed in and the nurses rushed around prepping me. Soon someone came in to inform me that the doctor had been called away to emergency surgery and I would have to wait. I laid in bed until 5:30 at which point a nurse checked me and said "Oh she's a 10!" (No pain meds...Yay!) They rushed me to the OR and made Billy wait in the hall while they put in the spinal. Then they cut Makenna out of my body.
(Sidenote: I am TERRIFIED of knives. I don't cut things ever.....I am just so scared of being cut myself. That by itself made this a traumatic experience for me!) Makenna was pulled out of me and rushed to NICU. She was having trouble breathing. I was sent to recovery and didn't see her until the next day. I remember mom wheeling me down to the NICU and I didn't have any recognition of her. She was only 5 lbs 12 oz. There was no reason for the section. Other than myself and apparently the staff being uneducated about shoulder dystocia and ways to resolve it. I am so thankful for Makenna...and even for her birth. Although I NEVER want to go through a c-section again...I feel like it was an important turning point in my life. Never before would I have dreamed of having a homebirth, or going against doctor's orders. But now I am firm in believing that is exactly what we are being led to do with this birth. Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we prepare for our HBAC! (homebirth after c-section) Only 9.5 weeks left!!!!

Mallory's Birth

In preparing myself for the upcoming birth of Conner I have decided that I really need to write out my previous labor experiences. Feel free to read or not....It's mainly just for me and over the past few months I have been asked about my "birth stories" on different forums I participate in both ICAN and the VBAC and homebirth messageboards. So here goes:

I had a fairly uneventful first pregnancy. We found out I was pregnant in August and were ecstatic. It was met with a mixture of disbelief and joy from family and friends. (Billy and I had been married less than two weeks.) The hardest part of my pregnancy was the emotions that came up. My older sister had been trying for five years to have a baby unsuccesfully. I was so happy for us, but so sad for her. Around Thanksgiving, however, we got some wonderful news....Jennifer was pregnant too!!! Our babies would be 3-4 months apart.
I remember thinking I just wanted to stop being pregnant, but my sweet mother warned my how horrible pitocin was so when the OB office offered to induce at 37 weeks I declined. We continued on....
April 23rd was a Saturday. One of my close friends from high school was getting married! Mom and I went to the wedding. It was 6 days till my "due date"! I made it through the wedding but just was not feeling up to the reception, so mom and I went out to eat instead. I got about halfway through the meal and just could not eat anymore. Mom insisted that we go to WalMart and get some last minute things for the baby. Off to WalMart we went. I was so irritable! I remember thinking if you make me walk around this store one more time....AHHH!!!! Anyway, we made it home and into the apartment. I stopped at the TV to talk to Billy and look at the mail and my water broke. It wasn't huge just a trickle, enough that I thought I had peed on myself. I was so embarassed, I didn't tell anyone just went to the bathroom and changed. Around 5, I started getting worried. Mom had left, and Billy and I were clueless (God bless first time parents!), I called half the county till I finally found my sister at a friends house. She told me to go to the hospital, but within minutes I got a call from Mom.
It went something like this:
ME: Mom, I think I'm in labor, and I'm pretty sure my water broke.
Mom: Oh, I'm sure your fine...just lay down for awhile you'll feel better.
ME: BUT, I REALLY think I'm in labor....
Mom: It's fine just lay down for a little while, take a nap, she'll come sometime next week!
ME: (rolling my eyes) ok mom I think I'll just lay down for awhile.
We hang up, I called sis back and we agreed mom has lost her mind. LOL Little did I know she was just trying to keep me calm and home as long as possible...she had thought I was in labor since the WalMart trip...hence the dozen trips around the store. LOL!
Billy and I laid down but couldn't sleep, I was timing contractions to every eight minutes. Billy kept saying, hunny let me take you to the hospital and I kept arguing no mom doesn't think its real. We decided to visit some friends and spent about an hour at their house. Contractions were about 5 minutes apart. When we left I finally agreed to let Billy take me to the hospital. We got checked in around 10 pm, changed into the gown, and a nurse swabbed me to see if in fact my water had broke. IT HAD!!! She checked me and I was a 4! I thought YAY ME!!!! LOL, they put me in the bed and started an IV and EFM. After about an hour labor had "stalled". I was so uneducated. I didn't know that laying in bed could help labor stop, I just assumed I was broken. A nurse came in and informed me that since I was GBS+ and had waited so long to come in after my water broke...Really only about 6 hours....that I was hurting the baby and they needed to speed things up. No offer to get me out of bed or restart things naturally, she wanted to put me on pitocin. I was terrified after that, so I agreed. Pitocin started and by 4 am I was in soooooo much pain. I couldn't breath between contractions, much less rest, so I asked for the epidural. (Ever heard of a "cascade of interventions"? Well if not, here is a classic case, Going to the hospital early led to stalled labor, led to pitocin led to epi. Its only the grace of God it didn't lead to a c-section.) After the epidural, I rested between contractions. Family members that had rushed over went home to get some rest and things calmed down for awhile.
Sunday April 24th: Around 10:30 am I told the nurse I felt like I needed to push....what did I know I had an epidural in....She checked me and said I was only a 9. "Not to worry, I'll just stretch you to a 10!" (WHAT????) The stretching commenced and by 11am they told me I could push. A Dr. came in....who I had never met and didn't even work for the practice I was seeing to catch the baby (funny how this hospital thing works, huh?). I pushed for 26 minutes. At about 22 minutes Mallory's little head came out, Dr. exclaims "Wow it's tight down here!" Cuts me, and then procceds to grab Mallory just under her jawbone and jerk her out. My sister was on the phone with my grandmother who lives about 2 hours away so she could hear the first cry. We waited and waited, finally a little cry. It was a buzz of activity, nurses off to my left cleaning and checking Mallory, the OB helping me deliver the placenta, and stitching me up. And the infamous nurse who "stretched" me cleaning up the room. I remember looking and her and saying please don't let anyone in here, we want it to be just my husband, I and the baby for a few minutes. Her reply..."That's ok just let me get this cleaned up, and then she paraded in the entire waiting room of guests. Over 20 people!!!!!! They handed Billy a swaddled up Mallory, I held her for a few seconds, before some well meaning relative took her and then passed her around to ALL 20 PEOPLE!!!! It was so horrible. I didn't have time to process the birth, much less bond with Mallory. We finally got the baby back and ushered everyone out of the room. I didn't even think about trying to nurse, nor did I unswaddle her, one nurse had remarked "You don't want to get her too cool." Anyways, about an hour later an X-ray tech entered our room. She told us that she wanted to take Mallory for an xray. "Is that normal?" I asked....nervously she left to get the nurse...who finally informed me that Mallory was injured. Possibly a broken collarbone. Definetly numbness in her right arm. (Wouldn't that have been nice to know before passing her around to all those people???) The xray was negative for a fracture, and we were told the problem would resolve before we left the hospital. Seven days later we were finally discharged (problems breastfeeding led to jaundice and the dreaded billi lights!) Needless to say the injury didn't resolve itself. We still deal with it everyday. I am thankful to God for a healthy baby girl, and feel so blessed for the progress her arm has made. It has been 4 years since the birth and it still haunts me to think of all the things that could have been changed that may have prevented the injury at all. My sweet 7 lb 14 oz. baby girl should not have been hurt. I can only reflect that I know more now....and try to dwell on the positive aspects of the birth! Namely our beautiful, independent, little girl!

August!

Today is the first day of August. This is a very special month for our family. First of all Billy's birthday, and my niece Lauren's birthdays are Aug 9th! Then Billy and I will celebrate our wedding anniversary on Aug 14th. We also found out we were pregnant with both Mallory and Makenna during the month of Aug. (Mallory Aug 25th, Makenna Aug 19th!) Last my birthday is Aug 28th. YAY!!!! We have lots to celebrate this month. Since it is our anniversary month I thought I would share our "love story"!

Billy and I knew each other in high school. We sat beside of one another in freshman German class. I had a secret crush on him, LOL and he insists he had one on me. We became friends and always said a friendly hello when we passed each other in the hall but that was about it. Our senior year he dated my very best friend. She had been my friend since third grade. I know, I know I am so mean. LOL (side note this was only a six week high school romance.) When the friend broke up with him right before prom I asked Billy if he would like to go with our group of friends. He agreed and somehow we ended up paired off. Its hilarious looking back because although we weren't a "couple" we have all these professional, and snapshot pictures of us in our prom get-up. LOL Anyways, after prom we didn't reconnect for almost three years. One weekend while I was home from Asheville, my family talked me into calling him up and checking on him. And I guess you could say the rest is history. Within a month we were "dating" and within six weeks of that we were married. God knew His plan for us, even when it seemed to everyone else we were crazy. I am amazed at how wonderful our lives have turned out. Shortly after the wedding Billy got saved and within a year had announced his call to preach. I never imagined that God would bless us so abundantly. So in case I have forgotten to say it lately: "Thank you Lord for providing me with a wonderful spiritual leader for our home, a best friend, and partner in life. Thank you for blessing our family in more ways than I can begin to count. Thank you most of all for taking a sinner like me and saving me in Your mercy and grace!"

Happy August everyone!