Lydia's Arrival- Part 6

Such relief and joy!  My bawling started up again in earnest, this time in joy.  After a few minutes of being examined and cleaned up, our sweet little bundle was put next to me for a short time.  I was so very thankful.  Then she was taken away again to be monitored while I was stitched up.  Once again, the doctors were great.  They soon assured me that the surgery had gone well and that there was nothing they could see to prevent me from giving birth again.

Baby had Apgar scores of 7 and 9 out of 10.  Unfortunately, though, the doctor soon came to me and let me know that they would need to monitor her longer because she was causing some concern.  It seemed that she was doing the same thing she had been doing during labor.  She would be looking great, then she would suddenly drop.  At one point, I was told that they were unsure if she would be able to go with us that day.  They thought they may need to keep her for the day.
I was eventually all stitched up and wheeled to the recovery room.  I was shaking a lot and kept falling asleep.   Our nurse (named Lydia) was wonderful.  She asked us what our baby’s name was and we told her ‘Lydia,’ after my grandma.  I told Kendall he could leave me and go be with Lydia.  Someone went to check to see if he could go see her.  I was in and out, but I remember the odd feeling when I heard someone come back into the room and say, “Kendall, you can go see your daughter.”  Daughter?!  That’s not a word we’re used to!

About 2 hours after Lydia’s birth, they finally brought her to me.  They were still undecided about whether they would keep her for the day.  But they put her on my chest and right away she started to nurse like a pro.  Soon they were convinced that she was stable and doing well.  She needed her Mommy.

The stay at the hospital went well.  Normally they keep Mom and Baby for 72 hours after a c-section, but somehow we convinced them to let us go home just 36 hours after Lydia was born.  Apparently, both of us were doing well enough to head home.  It also helped a lot that Kendall is a nurse. 

But before leaving, I asked to see the pediatrician one more time.  I was feeling so uneasy about how Lydia had acted right after birth and about her size.  The pediatrician came into our room and I brought out my questions:  "Why is she so small?  Why was the placenta so small?  Why did she have a hard time right after she was born?"  The pediatrician simply said, "Well, you're going to have to ask God some of those questions.  But I can tell you that she is normal.  Babies come in all shapes and sizes and she is normal.  She is just fine."  That was the reassurance I needed before heading home with our little girl.

Lydia's Arrival- Part 5

From that point on, things become blurry.  It was about 3:30 am and I was terribly tired.  Things began to become more urgent.  I vaguely remember more people in the room.  Then the doctor was telling me that they were moving me to a bigger room in case we needed to do a c-section.  Within a minute or so of her telling me that, it suddenly became an emergency.  All of the sudden, she was telling me, “We’re taking you for a c-section.”  And I heard her telling someone, “Get Dad some greens (scrubs) for the O.R.”  Then my bed was being wheeled out of the room and down the hall to the O.R.

At this point, all of the stress and anxiety I had been feeling since the day before began to take over.  I held my hand over my face as I was rushed down the hall and just started crying.  Kendall wasn’t with me, which made things much worse.  The doctors were great and did their best to reassure me.  They told me, “You’re going to be okay.  We can get a baby out really quickly.”  I appreciated the reassurance, but I was a lost cause.  There was no calming me now.

This was the first that I remember feeling really scared.  It was the first I remember begging God:  “Please God.  Please God.”

Things were very busy in the O.R.  I could hear 2 people counting instruments.  The anesthesiologist was there.  (I was so glad I already had the epidural in place.)  A special team for the baby was there.  Doctors and nurses were there.   There was a lot going on to get me ready for surgery.  Once in the O.R., I just let loose and began weeping, adding to the noise in the room.  In the midst of my bawling, I listened and nodded as 2 people ran through the risks with me and I read and signed a consent form. 

Things were a blur, but I remember that Kendall tried to come in and was sent back out.  I kept my eyes on the door, waiting for him.  I also remember hearing my Baby’s heartbeat on a monitor.  I didn’t know how fast or slow it was, but I knew it was still going.  Several  minutes before they cut me open, they took off the monitors to prep my belly for surgery.  It was a scary few minutes when I was aware that I had no idea whether or not her heart was still pumping.

Finally, they let Kendall in the O.R.  He says that I was already opened up by the time he came in.  I was so relieved to have him there.   The anesthesiologist stood at my head and explained the tugging and pressure and pushing I would feel.  That was not pleasant at all.  Soon, he was telling Kendall, “They’re pulling the Baby out now, if you want to stand up and take a look.”  Kendall stood and looked over the curtain to see our Baby.  Within seconds we heard a hearty cry.  We were immediately reassured that she looked great and her tiny, flailing, screaming, wet self appeared behind the curtain for 3 seconds before she was whisked away.  It was 3:58 am.

Lydia's Arrival- Part 4

By this time I was really needing to concentrate and breathe through contractions.  But I was still only 3 centimeters dilated.  I was so tired and felt completely overwhelmed with the thought of laboring all through the night and then still needing to do the big work of pushing a baby out.  I was spoiled with the boys- they were born late in the evening, after a day (or 2) of laboring. 

I tried the nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, mask.  I couldn’t tell if it helped or not.  Kendall even took a turn with the gas mask when the nurse was out of the room.  He didn’t think it helped much either.  We discussed it and decided that I would get an epidural.  My thinking was that I could sleep for awhile while my body worked at getting ready for delivery.  Honestly, as I read the information about epidurals, one thing that scared me the most was the fact that the numbing felt like a bee sting.  Kendall just laughed at me.

The anesthesiologist was there before too long and before I knew it, I was hunched over leaning against Kendall, squeezing his hands harder than I’ve squeezed anything and waiting for the bee sting.  Well, the whole process was way worse than a bee sting, but much of that was the thought of what was happening.  Soon my contractions were becoming less painful.  However, when I laid down to rest, Baby didn’t like that.  The doctor asked me to sit up again.  Somehow that position put less pressure on Baby and her cord.  

Lydia's Arrival- Part 3

It wasn’t long after checking in arriving at the hospital in Winnipeg that the nurses and doctors came into our room rather bewildered.  “Your baby looks very happy,” they said.  “We’re not sure what the big panic was in Red Lake.”  What?  We were confused.  (Looking back now, we see the difference:  in Red Lake you are hours from a c-section and neo-natal intensive care.  You have to look ahead and be cautious.  In Winnipeg, c-section is minutes away.  You don’t have to anticipate hours ahead.)  The doctor told us, “If you are worried about needing a c-section, you can stop worrying.  It’s not going to happen.”

The nurses in Winnipeg strapped the monitors to my belly and sure enough, Baby was looking fine.  A relief, but we wondered what would happen to us now.  The test for amniotic fluid in Red Lake had been inconclusive, so the doctor took another sample.  She told us that if it was amniotic fluid, I would be induced because I had been leaking for a couple days and would be at risk for infection.  If it wasn’t amniotic fluid....  Would we be sent back to Red Lake?

Soon the doctor came back and said that Yes, it was definitely amniotic fluid!  Kendall and I high-fived.  So relieved that Baby was looking good and that we could go ahead and deliver her.  The wait was over.

Soon, however, the nurses and doctors started expressing concern about the read-outs on the monitor.  Maybe Baby wasn’t doing as well as they thought.  Baby’s heart rate was dropping too much with the contractions.  My amniotic fluid was very low.  The fluid serves as a cushion for the baby.  However, with so little fluid in there, Baby didn’t have that cushion.  Every time I contracted, Baby was squeezed and the cord, with its supply of blood and oxygen, was squeezed.  They explained it to us this way:  If someone ducks their head under water for 5 or 10 seconds every few minutes, they are fine.  But if they duck their head under water for 20 seconds at a time, they will get very tired and weak.  That’s what was happening to Baby.  The word picture was very helpful, but it traumatized Kendall.  He told me later that every time he watched her heart rate go down, he would picture himself under water, unable to breathe.

My labor was induced around 8:00 pm and soon I started feeling my contractions get more painful.  I felt okay, but it was slow-going.  I was oh-so-tired.  Sometime around midnight, the doctor came in and said they would turn down the pitocin for awhile because they would be busy in the Operating Room doing a c-section.  There was enough concern about Baby that they didn’t want things progressing or turning into an emergency while they were occupied and while the O.R. was full.  When the c-section was done, the doctors checked back in with us.  They decided to continue backing off on the pitocin because Baby wasn’t doing well with contractions.

Lydia's Arrival- Part 2

School was just about to let out, so we called a friend to pick up Eli and Evan for us.  Leaving them was one of the biggest disappointments about the possibility of Winnipeg.  I knew that they wanted to meet Baby at the first moment possible.  I didn’t know how long we’d be gone.  I knew they weren’t crazy about staying with other people overnight.  I was worried about them. 

I also wanted to go home so bad.  I just wanted 2 hours at home.  I wanted to take a nap at home and I wanted to clean up and pack my own stuff and pack things for Eli and Evan.  Thankfully, I was partially packed and had a packing list laid out just in case Kendall needed to run home for our things.  Of course they told me No, I couldn’t go home.  Kendall ran home and gathered the things on the list.  He called the boys on the way back to the hospital and reported to me that they sounded “indifferent” about the whole thing.  That was a relief and I realized that there was nothing I could do but trust God and our friends to take care of them.

The nurses came in and told me that the plane would be at the airport for me in a half an hour.  That is super fast.  I had been categorized as an “obstetrical emergency” and moved high on the list.  Before I knew it, I was dressed in billowing hospital garb and walking out to the ambulance in the garage.  They said I didn’t have to lie down in the back and said that I could sit wherever I wanted to.  So I asked if I could drive.  They said, “Sure!” but somehow I still ended up in the back.  Kendall got to ride shotgun. 

When we turned out of the hospital parking lot, the driver turned on the siren.  Right away, the EMT in the back told him to turn it off.  I heard the EMT explaining to the nurse in the back that for the extra seconds the siren buys, the sense of emergency and stress it raises for the patient isn’t worth it.  I sat in the jump seat facing the front.  As we sped down the highway, I could see cars pulling over as we passed.  I realized that the lights were on for me.  It was a weird feeling.  I don’t know that I’ve ever even been inside an ambulance on a field trip!  It was a beautiful, warm day and I remember feeling annoyed that I had missed it being inside.

At the airport, the ambulance drove out onto the tarmac where the medical evacuation plane was waiting for us.  It was such a surreal feeling as I crawled out of the ambulance and stood waiting in the warm wind and sunshine to board the plane.  On the plane, the nurse that was accompanying us wanted me to lie down.  So they strapped me to a stretcher.  I was on my side and could look out the window.  Every few minutes the nurse listened to Baby with the Doppler.  Baby did fine on the ride.  After 45 minutes or so we landed at the airport in Winnipeg.  I walked off the plane and was loaded onto another stretcher and into another ambulance.  This time we flew through the city with the sirens blaring.  By 6:30 or so we were pulling into the hospital parking lot.  I was taken right to a room in the high risk labor and delivery unit and wished luck by the EMTs and the nurse who came with us from Red Lake.

Lydia's Arrival- Part 1

I am unsure of when the story of Lydia’s arrival actually began.  I had lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions through much of my pregnancy.  I noticed that they were picking up in intensity in the last month.  A week before Lydia’s birth, we went to Winnipeg for an ultrasound.  The tech and the doctor there thought she looked good, just small.  The placenta and the rest of Lydia’s environment looked healthy to them.  The ultrasound tech told me, “I think you just grow big boys and small girls.”  According to her, this baby was most likely just “petite.”

On Tuesday I started noticing little gushes of fluid.  Could it be amniotic fluid?!  Who knew?  All kinds of weird things happen in a pregnant body.  I paid close attention though.  On Wednesday Kendall stopped at the hospital and picked up some litmus paper.  From what we understood, it was supposed to change color if it was amniotic fluid.  It didn’t change color.  I still paid attention.  We debated whether or not to go in and get checked.  To be honest, I just wasn’t at all thrilled about going and spending several hours sitting in a waiting room waiting to be seen when I was feeling just fine.

Thursday morning I was full of energy and got my hair cut and went grocery shopping.  I was still noticing fluid.  When I got home I thought about it that I hadn’t felt Baby move very much that day.  I decided to sit down and hold still and pay attention.  She just wasn’t moving much.  She moved a bit, but not nearly as much as she normally did.  Kendall and I kept checking in by phone.  Finally after I ate some lunch, I went in and met Kendall at the hospital.  They were expecting me there and took me to the delivery room.  (Weird!)  The nurses strapped me up to the monitors to see what Baby was doing in there. 

After a bit, the nurses started asking me if I was feeling the tightenings or contractions.  Well, I was to a degree, but I had been feeling them for months!  What I was feeling on Thursday was nothing different from what I had been feeling all along.  They saw that Baby’s heart rate was dropping with each tightening.  That is normal to a degree.  Apparently, though, it was dropping too drastically.  They called the doctor on call to come over from the clinic to see what was going on.  He came and consulted with us.  While he was in the room, the monitor showed a drastic drop in Baby’s heart rate- down in the 60s.  He happened to see that and realized this was serious.  (I was still rather oblivious to the seriousness of what was happening.)  Kendall said later that he was so thankful that the doctor was in the room and saw the drop for himself.  Sometimes it is up to the nurses to try to convince the doctors of the gravity of what is going on.

Sometime around then, the doctor mentioned the possibility of sending me to Winnipeg.  I couldn’t believe it.  When I went in, I thought they would strap me to monitors, tell me Baby was just fine, and most likely send me back home to wait for another week or so.  (She started moving normally once I was sitting on the hospital bed.)  I thought maybe my amniotic sac had actually broken and they would need to induce me.  But I wasn’t thinking Winnipeg.  We don’t have a surgery here in Red Lake.  If an emergency comes up, you get “medivac’ed” or flown out to a bigger center.  The wait for a plane can take hours.  Then you have a 45-minute flight to Winnipeg or Thunder Bay. 

I didn’t want to go to Winnipeg.  Sure enough, the doctor came back after awhile and said, “You got yourself a trip to Winnipeg.”  I didn’t want to go to Winnipeg.  Around this time, Kendall and I were in the room by ourselves and I started crying just a bit.  But of course I was in this small-town hospital with a nurse I knew well and all of Kendall’s co-workers.  So I pulled myself together and held in the tears.

She's Here!

Welcoming Lydia Raine! Isn't she precious?

Well, I sat down to write, but looks like this is as far as I'll get...Miss Lydia is vehemently requesting my attention.  More to follow...

And this is what we get for being youth leaders...

Don't ask why I flatter myself so...

(By the way, this is over a month ago- my belly has grown since then.  I don't think I am able to fly at this point, though I haven't tried in awhile.)

Waddle, Waddle

Well, with less than 3 weeks to my due date, I am officially declaring myself "Allowed to Waddle."  According to what I've heard from ultrasounds, my due date is anywhere from 2 weeks and 2 days from now to 3 weeks and 3 days from now.  I'll just listen to my own dates, which puts the due date at May 24- 2 days short of 3 weeks from today.  Craziness!

And hmm....  Today is some kind of super-duper full moon, so if you believe that affects labor, it may be sooner than we all think...

So, what people always ask:  "Are you ready?"  How do you answer that question?  Yes, I have diapers and sleepers and the room is mostly set up.  My hospital packing list is printed out and lying in the crib, waiting to be needed.  Yes, I am ready to sleep well when I am in bed.  I am ready to not be carrying around this big belly.

And I am so ready to be holding this little baby in my arms, rather than in my belly.  I can't wait to meet her.

But does any of that really mean you're ready?  Am I ready to be up with her in the night?  (That actually sounds like an improvement compared to the way nights have gone for the entire pregnancy.)  Am I ready to try to figure out what she needs when she is fussy?  (Kendall and I were recently in  a meeting where 2 babies were fussing.  He looked over at me and I could see the terror in his eyes.)  Am I ready to face to possibility of postpartum depression again?  Am I ready for labor and delivery?  (Let's not even get into that one.)  Am I ready to not simply jump in the car, holler at the boys to buckle up and speed off to somewhere?  Do we really have any idea how this will change our lives?  Probably not.  But ready or not, here we come!

I cling to my friends' assurances that Baby #3 is so different, easier, so much fun.  (I have found that sometimes even false hope works in a pinch.)  But I'm hoping that we will find this to be true.  It makes sense: I'm older and hopefully more mature; Baby #3 has to be flexible to fit into an already busy family life; lots of attention from big brothers; more of us to enjoy each smile and new step.

So, though we are nervous about the coming changes, we are ready to face them and welcome this new family member.

I guess I should also give a bit of a "medical" update.  My boys were big- each very, very close to 9 pounds.  This baby is small.  When they try to put dates on her during an ultrasound, they measure her at close to 2 weeks behind.  The medical concern is that perhaps the placenta isn't giving her all she needs.  So we are being sent out to Winnipeg next week for an ultrasound and an appointment with an obstetrician.  There is a possibility that if they believe she needs more than the placenta is providing, they will go ahead and induce labor, bringing her out where she may be better off.

I think she's fine.  I rejoice at the idea of a healthy baby that is smaller than the boys!!!  She is so active (and here I thought girls are calm).  I just can't imagine that a malnourished baby would have so much energy.  Even the doctor that I've been seeing most recently, seems to think that things are probably fine.  Girls tend to be on the smaller side.  I'm on the smaller side.  A 6 or 7 pound baby should not be an issue.  We are going to go ahead and keep the appointment in Winnipeg, but I expect to come back home and wait for another 2 weeks.

Really, my big concern in all of this is Eli and Evan.  We decided to take them with us to Winnipeg since we just left them for 2 nights when we went to Winnipeg a couple weeks ago.  They don't love being left overnight and we decided to make this into a fun family get-away.  But we have had to think about the off-chance that the doctor will tell us to stay in Winnipeg and start labor.  What do we do with the boys?  It's hard to know how to handle the possibility of a long-distance delivery, but that's reality for everyone who is pregnant in Red Lake.  Any ideas?  Anyone want to be on call to drop everything and get to Winnipeg to hang out with the boys???

Anyway, so that's my update...  And lest I sound less than enthusiastic about this baby, let me reassure you that I am very, very excited!  I would love to fast forward everything to babytime.  But it's Saturday morning and there is work to be done...

They're Awake

This was actually a photo Kendall a few weeks ago, so they've been awake for awhile.  We've heard they're in the neighborhood.  Here we go...  No more birdseed at this house!

Evan's Catch

45 inches!  I'm not sure how a little guy catches a fish as big as himself...  He's quite proud.  I overheard Kendall asking Evan to teach him how to catch such a big fish.  Evan had detailed instructions for his daddy.