Lily’s official due date was August 5th but after a full moon and some severe storms, she graced us with her presence exactly two weeks early’just as her daddy had predicted.
We were expecting some bad storms during the night of Thursday, July 21st. I had been sleeping on the couch for over a week and asked Jason to blow up the air mattress and sleep in the living room with me. I just didn’t feel like sleeping out there by myself. Neither one of us slept well that night for a number of reasons.
At around 5:30 AM on Friday, July 22nd I got up to use the restroom. When I came back to the couch I felt a warm sensation. I was pretty certain that my water had broken. As I hurried back to the bathroom I told Jason ?I think we’re going to have a baby!?. Sure enough, my water had broken’how exciting! I called the doctor’s office and was told to come to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital around 6:30 AM and got hooked up to the monitors for a little while. Luckily, I ate some toast before we went to the hospital since they don’t let you eat once you’ve checked in. By 11:00 the contractions were getting pretty strong. The anesthesiologist offered the epidural at that time but I chose to hold off for a little while longer. I ended up getting the epidural when I was 4 cm at around 12:45 and was much more comfortable after that! I was able to sleep through the contractions so I would have energy when it counted. My main complaint throughout the afternoon was the fact that I was absolutely starving!
We visited with family during the afternoon and at 6:30 I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. Lily’s head had a hard time fitting under my pelvic bone so the progress was slow but steady. After almost 3 ? hours of pushing, our beautiful baby girl was born at 9:49 PM on Friday, July 22nd. It was amazing when the doctor placed her on my chest. Lily was having some trouble breathing so they quickly took her to the warming table for some additional care. It turns out she had inhaled and swallowed a large amount of meconium and was not breathing as well as they would have liked. She had the most pitiful little cries. The special care nurses came and continued to work on her by suctioning her lungs and giving her oxygen. It was really pretty scary not knowing exactly what was going on with her. As the doctor finished up with me, Jason went with Lily since the nurses wanted to take her to the special care nursery. Before they left for the nursery, I was able to have her on my chest for a few more minutes. Our families were so excited to finally see her as they had been anxiously waiting right outside of the nursery for many hours. Lily ended up spending the night in the special care nursery but we were able to visit her briefly on the way to the recovery room.
The pediatrician examined Lily on Saturday morning and told us that she appeared to be doing well and we could expect her to be brought to our room soon. The nurse brought her at about 8:30 AM and no sooner had walked in the room than Lily spit up a lot of meconium. They took her back to the special care nursery. We were so close to having our baby with us! We visited her in the nursery again that morning and finally she was brought to us for good at around noon. It was so amazing to have her with us and to be able to hold her! It was love at first sight!
