Nine years ago today, this ray of sunshine was born.
I thought I'd take today to share her birth story.
When #4 was born, we thought we were done having children, but when he was about 4 years old, I kept getting these thoughts and feelings that we needed to add on to our family. "What?! We're done. We've gotten rid of all the baby stuff." I kept feeling that there was someone (two someones actually- two little girls) waiting to join our family. I was hesitant. My children were finally at a phase where there were no diapers, all were sleeping through the night, and everyone could entertain themselves (for the most part). Life was good. I liked this phase. Clint and I decided to pray about it, which we did. Finally after a few months of no answer, we decided to just try and see what happens. If God wanted us to have another baby, I would get pregnant. Well, He did. I got pregnant right away.
My pregnancy was rough. Never in my life was I ever so sick. For months it was all I could do to keep myself alive and the kids happy. I was finally given some medication for my morning sickness, which helped, but it also made me really tired. I think the whole purpose of the medication was to knock you out so you couldn't be sick.
A month or so into my pregnancy I began bleeding - something I never did with any of my other 4. It had something to do with the lining of my placenta attaching, but it went away after a few days, and all was well.
Finally the morning sickness subsided and I began to feel better (well, as good as a pregnant lady can). At 20 weeks, we had an ultrasound and found out that we were having a girl! We were super excited to add another girl to the mix. Finally #2 would have a sister. The months ticked by. We went out and bought new baby stuff, and brushed up on our "baby skills".
A few weeks before my due date I began having major pain in my abdomen. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, and this was killing me. My doctor thought it was just my gallbladder acting up and that I should stop eating greasy foods (which I hadn't been eating). Finally I couldn't take the pain any longer and had Clint take me to the ER. There they gave me a dose of morphine (Ahhh- It was so nice to have the pain subsided for a bit!), and did an ultrasound. They couldn't find anything wrong. The next day I went back into the doctor. She didn't want to take any chances and thought it would be best if we took the baby early, but we'd have to get special permission from a Board of Pediatricians first.
Finally after waiting for FOREVER (okay maybe just an maybe an hour- but it seemed like forever to an hormonal pregnant woman in pain), we received permission and my doctor sent us to the hospital. We were having a baby.
At the hospital the plan was to apply some kind of cream to help thin my cervix . They would put it on, I'd wait an hour, then go home and come back in the morning to be induced. That's not how it went. As soon as they applied the cream, I immediately went into labor and I'm talking hard painful full-on labor here. There would be no going home for me.
It wasn't long before I asked for an epidural. By this time it was 9:00 pm. I was exhausted. I hadn't slept in days because of the acute pain in my abdomen. Now I was pain-free and all I wanted to do was sleep, however, the anesthesiologist instructed me that I needed to switch from my right side to my left side every 20 minutes so that the epidural wouldn't settle on just one side. So all night long I flip back and forth. Sometime in the middle of the night I noticed I was bleeding. In fact, there were blood clots all down my legs. I called my nurse who informed me that this was normal during labor. She cleaned me up and went on her way. Not too long later, I was fully dilated and it was time to push. When my doctor arrived to deliver the baby she flipped out on the nurse asking her how long I had been bleeding and why she hadn't been informed. There was no time for the nurse to respond. At that moment (4:49 am), I gave birth to a healthy 6 lb 14 oz little girl.
After delivering my placenta, the doctor spent a long time inspecting it which I thought was weird because usually they just throw it away and they're on their way. She held up a big huge red softball-sized piece of tissue and told me that this was a blood clot. My placenta had ruptured. (Thus the reason for my abdominal pain and the bleeding.)
I didn't fully understand what all that meant (This was pre-Google on your smartphone days.) It wasn't until my recovery nurse introduced me to all sorts of random nurses and pre-med students as the woman who's placenta had ruptured. Everyone would then remind me how lucky I was that every thing turned out fine.
We are so grateful it did. We're very blessed to have #5 in our family. Her outgoing, kind, loving, righteous personality is amazing. She is such a joy to have.
p.s. -My little sister was there for this birth. This was her first live birth, and boy was it a doozy! I think she's been traumatized for life. Clint and I kept explaining to her that this isn't how it normally is. Poor Kimberlee.