Lydia Meets Her Big Brothers

Kendall and I could hardly wait for this Team of Three to finally meet.  And the Big Brothers were so excited to finally meet their Little Sister.

Here Eli and Evan are seeing Lydia for the first time.

So after examining their Little Sister closely, Evan finally asked, "So, how do you know she's a girl?"

Alright, let the lessons begin:

After bathtime, Lydia was ready to eat.  So we got all the personal issues out of the way the first night and the boys got a little glimpse of how Lydia eats.  Kendall and I had decided that it would be much better to just normalize nursing rather than having the boys trying to sneak glances for the next months or me always trying to hide.  So I guess they got quite the education that night!

At the Hospital

He's such a good Daddy.

Don't I look all put together for just having given birth?  Ha ha!  I won't even show the photos from the day of her birth.  I look crazy-scary!

Isn't she so tiny?

She weighed 5 lbs 5 oz when we left the hospital.

Such a mix of emotions about the emergency c-section...
Of course the fear and the stress of the whole ordeal left a mark.  And there was disappointment.  I was psyched to labor and push this baby out.  (And what better baby to push out than this tiny one?)  I was disappointed because for months I had been preparing myself for labor.  I wanted to labor at home as long as possible.  Then, because it was Baby #3 and because she was so small, I wouldn't even be at the hospital very long before pushing her out.  I also had plans for how I would do some things differently from the first two, hopefully improving the experience.  And I was so looking forward to the hour or 2 after her birth.  I would have an adrenaline high and I was so excited about the alert time so many babies have right after they're born.  Well, none of those things happened.  In fact, everything seemed rather surreal after we were back home with Lydia.  I had been psyching myself up for a huge event that never happened.  But here I was with the final product: a beautiful little girl.

The other disappointments were knowing that I had a long healing time ahead of me and knowing that this c-section may change the course of any future delivery.

But my overwhelming emotions were those of gratitude and relief.  We were so grateful that the doctor here in Red Lake had the foresight to send us out before things got to a true state of emergency.  (Looking back, I think things were probably more urgent than we realized when they evacuated us, but we didn't need to know everything at the time.)  We were so glad to be in Winnipeg with nurses and doctors who do labor and delivery all day, every day.  It was good to know that we were just down the hall from an operating room if needed and that this was all a fairly normal course of events for the staff.

We were so grateful and relieved to have Lydia arrive safe and sound.  In the end, we were just glad to have her with us, however she arrived.

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.