Lily’s Birth Story

It’s Monday, November 7^th, Lily’s due date, and another prenatal appointment.  Today is my first day of maternity leave, due to my high blood pressure at the end.  I am supposed to be on bed rest, although I have taken some breaks from lying around.  My mom is staying with me since Rob will be at work and we are worried I will go into labor and not have anyone to drive the hour and a half to the hospital.  Mom and I wake up and have a nice breakfast; she does a little more painting in our dog room.  (Rob and I decided to nest dangerously close to the end.)  I work on showering and getting ready.  We leave the house looking like a work zone because I do not believe that Lily is coming today.  Which means our kitchen is in our dining room and we have plastic and painting supplies littering the house.  Mom and I make our way over to Eagle County and decide to do a bit of pampering before my appointment.  We end up getting pedicures together and I paint my toe nails bright pink, in honor of my little girl.

We pick Rob up from work and all head over to my appointment together, the weather is starting to get a little snowy.  My blood pressure has risen even higher and the doctor is worried.  She orders us to go up and get the fetal heart rate monitored to check on the baby.  Lily’s heart rate is good, but with the weather, the fact we live so far away, and my high blood pressure the doctor decides to keep us and induce me.  None of us wanted something to go wrong and us be so far away from the hospital.

We had our lovely delivery nurse, Lindsey, start explaining what our procedure was going to be for the next couple of days.  Rob goes to get me my last meal, Fatbutt.  Fatbutt is a delicious combo of spaghetti sauce and alfredo.  The nurses get my IV put in.  It is around 7:30 and I get one more bathroom break before they start the process of inducing my labor.  I am not allowed out of bed now and am just supposed to rest up for my day tomorrow.  Easier said than done, I am very nervous and excited about what tomorrow will bring.  I am excited to meet my little Lily, but am terrified about the process that will bring her to me. 

Throughout all of this we are talking with Jenna, and she is deciding if she is going to come up tonight or if she will wait until tomorrow morning.  We have finally decided she should come up tonight and then stay in a hotel in case I go into labor that night.  She picks up Shannon and Blaine and they come visit me before going to the hotel.  Mom stays with me in the hospital.  She gets to sleep on the couch and they roll a cot in for Rob.  The cot is extremely uncomfortable so I invite Rob to lay in the bed with me.  It is a tight fit but we manage to get a little sleep before our big day.

Tuesday November 8, 2011

We wake up around 6am and they start the final steps to induce labor.  The contractions are slow at first and then they start getting a little more painful.  I try to play a card game with Jenna, Rob, and Mom.  This lasts one round and then I get a contraction that ends the game.  We decide that I should go for a walk to see if this will help it along and get Lily moving down into the birth canal.  I do not get very far before I get another contraction, that hurts, a lot.  I decide that I am ready for my epidural.  Once I get the epidural I am stuck in bed, because my legs won’t work properly, one last bathroom trip and back into bed.

I get the epidural and relish the pain relief in my stomach.  I get to relax for a little while.  At one point the doctor uses a hook to try and break my water, it doesn’t work.  I spend a little time enjoying my relief, then I start feeling the urge to push a couple of times, but not every time I have a contraction.  The doctor comes up to talk to me, and suggests I start trying to push, this is around 1pm.

Jenny has made it up from Denver to be there for the birth and I am glad to have such a large support party.  Jenna is on video and Jenny is on pictures, of course they have a lot of work to do before the big moment.  Rob, Mom, Jenna, Shannon, and Jenny take turns holding my legs up, getting me cold wash cloths for my forehead, and counting when I push.  The room felt like a million degrees to me so the wet washcloth was integral in keeping me more comfortable.  I tried many different positions, squatting on the bed, on my side, using a bar with a towel wrapped around it to help pull me up, and the regular on my back, like you see in all the movies.  This helped to keep it interesting, but also ensured that when it was all said and done my ENTIRE body hurt.

Every time I had a contraction I had to push for the count of 10 and I had to do it 3 times.  Everyone took turns counting out loud for me.  There was a lapse in diligence at times with the counting and this is when my crazy, angry pregnant lady personality came out!  I needed someone to count for me, EVERY SINGLE TIME.  Luckily, my huge support group, and Lindsey, my delivery nurse, were able to remember most times, and the rest of the times I yelled until they counted.  Lindsey was confident Lily would come out knowing how to count to 10!  I had to push for about 3 hours, which completely exhausted me.  I tried to take mini naps in between each contraction, but they come about every 2-3 minutes, so the rest was short lived.  As we got closer they called for another shot of the epidural to help me to push the rest of the way, not sure that it really worked.

As Lily came down into the birth canal the pain increased, I have a feeling that the epidural did not work down where I needed it most.  Finally, after 3 hours of pushing Lily was crowning.  My support group had grown exponentially, the doctor was back, a nurse for Lily was there and several other nurses were also there!  Rob was going to catch so they had to get him suited up.  He was released from the duty of holding my leg, so he could get ready!  I now had Mom and Shannon holding my legs up, I had no strength left for that at this point, Jenny and Jenna were ready with the cameras!

A few more pushes and Lily joined us sharing her voice with us right away.   Rob did a wonderful job catching our little angel.  He was so excited and amazed at how beautiful she was.  Rob cut the cord and put that beautiful little baby on my chest. 



Lily was born at 4:11pm, she weighed in at 7lbs, 5oz.  She was 20 inches long, and her head was 13 cm around.  It was a long journey but well worth the struggle to have our little Lily out in the world.  It was a very surreal feeling seeing her and knowing that she had been living and growing inside my belly for the past 10 months.

Here are some things I didn’t know was happening, but found out about later.  When she came out there was some staining aka she pooped on the way out.  This is a scary situation because babies can inhale some of this poop, called merconium, and cause infections in their lungs.  Lily cried right away when she came out, but somehow managed to avoid inhaling any merconium.  When the doctor went to take out my placenta she pulled on the umbilical cord and it broke.  While this was happening Jenna had to sit down because it made her so nauseous, glad I was in the dark about what was happening at the time!

All mothers believe that their baby is advanced, well I am a lucky mom and got confirmation that Lily is actually advanced… at pooping.  While Lily is lying on my chest she poops all over me.  Also, her poop starts changing to the yellow color much sooner than expected.  Daddy got to put on her first diaper, he tried backwards first, but has since learned how to expertly change diapers. She has not disappointed and has kept up her wonderful pooing skills and kept Mommy and Daddy busy changing her diapers.

It seems like forever, but they finally have me feed her.  Lindsey warned me that this time would be pretty easy, but it will be harder the next time. Lily and I needed a little help getting the hang of it, but the first time was pretty easy.  I also seemed to be making an extraordinary amount of milk called, colostrum.  Colostrum is known as liquid gold because it is so nutrient rich and also has a goldish color. 

I finally get to eat again.  Macaroni and cheese and pudding is the first meal I eat as a Mommy.  I realize that I am really hungry after working so hard and not eating for so long.  Around 7 my support group heads back home, and it is just my Mom, Rob and I.  Mom decides to go sleep at the hotel to give us some time alone and so she can get some good sleep.

There was a huge amount of babies born in the few days that we were at the hospital.  That night I hear a mom, who decided to go without the epidural at all.  She is loud and it makes me very happy that I am already done with my experience so that I am not even more terrified after hearing her.

Rob sleeps on the couch and we put the bassinet in between us so that either one of us can help Lily if we need to.  The nurse insists that I feed her every 3 hours, so I need to tell her how long she ate or she will come in and wake me up. 

We spend the next day getting checked out by multiple doctors and nurses.  We also get visit from the lactation consultant to help us be successful.  Grandma, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Bob and Christie come up to visit and see little Lily.  It is nice to have visitors who are showering Lily with love and attention.

Thursday we finally get to leave, although it takes forever to get us out of there.  Lily and I both have to be cleared to leave and they have to teach someone new how to do the paperwork to get us out of there.  So, I knew not to expect to wear my old clothes back home, however I was hoping to wear my maternity pants home.  I was still hugely swollen and was wearing an ice pack.  My pants did not fit, and I was not happy. 


When asked during labor if I was going to have more kids, I said no.  Word to the wise, DO NOT ask a women while she is pushing if she is willing to do this again, you probably will not like the answer.  However, after getting to enjoy Lily and having some time to forget the pain, I have gone back to the original plan and Rob and I will be having another baby.  Don’t get too excited we are going to wait a year or two and really spend the time enjoying our little Lily!