I am finally making an attempt to write down Lucy's birth story. Her feast day has inspired me to write about this beautiful bundle of joy!
She's grown so much already!
This ones actually a few weeks old, when the Rangers were actually in the series.
I was having contractions for 3 or 4 weeks before Lucy was born. Because of that and because CJ was early, I was determined this one was going to be early. We really wanted to get through a big training for work in the middle of September. We did, and then this one still seemed to take forever! What? Me, impatient? We still didn't know if this baby was a boy or a girl, but were very anxious to find out! I was having contractions regularly during the week of Dave's training, but I would rest as much as I could to postponed this if I could. It worked, and as soon as Dave's training was over we were so ready to meet this baby. I kept having contractions, but the midwife told me that if I rested and they went away, we'd still be waiting. And wait we did. As my sister put it, we asked God to wait for that week and then he asked us to wait. That seemed to be my routine for the next couple of weeks. I was so tired, be having contractions and put CJ to bed early so that I could rest them away.
Then comes Saturday night. I thought they were becoming more regular, and I called the midwife and called Dave at work and our neighbors who would watch CJ. Then I called them all back later determining it was a false alarm. I was exhausted, put CJ to bed early and went to soak in the tub and rest. I fell asleep for about an hour and then woke up around 10 to very intense contractions that weren't going away. I called Dave, who was still at work at 11 and then we got moving again. Called the midwife to meet us at the birth center and another nice neighbor came to stay with CJ.
We got there around midnight and the midwife checked me, and I knew I had progressed some with all these contractions but it was kind of bittersweet because it was kind of in between-she could break my water to try to get things started, or go home and probably be back later that day. I just looked at Dave and said "Let's do it." I was just so exhausted and impatient at that point that I couldn't wait any longer. She broke it and it seemed like 5 minutes later I was at 4 and some, and Dave and I were remembering how long it took us to get to 4 last time. We settled in there, and it hit Dave that he hadn't had dinner yet, so we ordered pizza at 1 am. I was moaning and laboring and all that for a couple hours when the birth assistant drew a bath for me to get in. She checked me to make sure I had progressed more before I got in, in case it would slow things down and I was still at a 4. I couldn't believe it! We were praying and so frustrated but praying, because that's where I got stuck with CJ and had to be transferred to the hospital.
I had no sense of time. We tried different things to progress and I got to go into the tub and pushed for a while, and then I moved to hold on the bedpost to squat and push. I have never screamed so much in my life. :o) Then I was ready to get up on the bed to deliver the baby. All of a sudden Dave and the midwife and the birth assistant were yelling "Now! The baby has to come out now!" At the very last minute , the baby's heart rate stopped or dropped or something. So, I grinned and beared it, and pushed the baby out in one contraction. Our beautiful daughter was born. Her color was off, and she wasn't breathing right. I got to hold her for a minute, and then they whisked her to the incubator thing. They tried several methods to try to get her to breathe right, but nothing worked for 2 hours. The whole time she was there I was feeling faint so I couldn't stand and be with her. They called the NICU people to come and get her, and they came and did their assessment. They took her to the hospital and she stayed in the NICU for 2 days. It was really surreal knowing I gave birth and could be home recovering but not with my daughter. She was there for 2 nights, and basically just had some fluid in her lungs that had to be worked out. Her cord was around her neck, making it difficult to let out the fluid. Compared to her roomies in the NICU, we had a lot to be thankful for-a full term baby who would be just fine in a couple days.
That's probably my longest post ever, but I did it. That's how Lucy got here!
