My Life

Little boys…

…fill our home with laughter

…fill our home with Legos

…fill our home with imagination

…fill our home with fun

…fill our home with curiosity

…and lots and lots of…

Love.

Elisabeth will be one month old this week, so before the memories start to get foggy, I’m writing baby girl’s birth story. I’m going to post it in two parts because of its length.

As many of you know, this was my fifth c-section. It was scheduled for Friday, December 16th, but for the first time ever, I went into labor on my own.

It was Tuesday, December 13th. We’d had a normal day. I’d had my last non-stress test done that afternoon, and I saw my doctor for the last time before she was scheduled to deliver the baby.

Later that day, I left the house around 6:00pm to drive to the community college to take my final exam for Spanish class. I took the final exam, and as I left my instructor wished me “suerte” with my “bebe” (luck with my baby). I then made my way down the stairs of the campus for the last time, got in my car, and headed for home.

The final exam had only taken me about 30 minutes to complete so I got home much earlier than usual. The kids were happy to see me home so early. We spent time together, and then they were off to bed around 9pm. That’s about the time I started to feel dull back pain and light but steady contractions. Could it be labor?

I wasn’t sure, so Ruben and I stayed awake for awhile to see if the contractions would subside. They didn’t. Whether I was sitting, standing, or walking, the contractions persisted….albeit not intensely.

Finally, I think it was around 11pm when I began to feel tired and so we headed for bed.

I woke up around 3:00am and realized that I was still having contractions. Needless to say, I never ended up going back to sleep after that. How can you sleep when you think you could be in labor?

I think I laid in bed for about an hour before I finally got up. I surfed the web, walked on the treadmill, sat for awhile on the couch, and got myself ready for the day.

The contractions were still there….uncomfortable, not terribly painful, but steady.

At around 6:00am I decided that I’d call the After Hours phone number for my doctor. I spoke with someone on the phone and explained that I was having contractions since the night before. She told me that my doctor could be contacted at 7:00am, but in the meantime that I should head to the hospital.

And so, I let Ruben know what was up, and we started getting the kids ready to go to the hospital. We were not quite sure what was going to happen once we got there so we didn’t call anyone in our extended family to let them know. In the back of my mind, I was thinking I would go and eventually be sent home to return for my scheduled c-section on Friday.

It didn’t happen that way. We arrived at the hospital, and I was promptly put in a wheelchair and we all made the long walk through the hospital to Labor & Delivery. After checking in at Labor & Delivery, I was put in a room and hooked up to the regular monitors to check baby’s heartbeat and my contractions. Shortly after that, a friendly nurse came into the room and did “the check” to see if I was dilated. I was dilated 1 centimeter.

The doctor was notified, and after that things happened rather quickly. The doctor and more nurses came into the room and let us know we were having a baby….very soon! They were going to go ahead and perform the c-section asap (not because the baby seemed in any danger, but rather so they wouldn’t get behind schedule).

Ruben and I made a few quick calls to find out who was available to watch the kids in the next 15-20 minutes. Ruben reached his parents, and they agreed to quickly get to our house where Ruben would meet them to drop off the kids. One of the nurses in the room gave him exactly 30 minutes to get back to the hospital, so I said my good-byes to the kids and they left.

After that, I went through all the usual motions that come with a c-section. I went over medical information with nurses, talked to the anesthesiologist, was given an IV, and wheeled to the operating room.

There I was prepped for surgery. I’ll spare you the details, but by that time Ruben was back from dropping off the kids and once the show got on the road, he was allowed to join me.

My original OB doctor wasn’t there to perform the c-section, so that was a bit disappointing since she delivered all four of our other children, but another great doctor whom I had visited with before in the office performed the c-section and did a great job.

Everything worked out as it should have because it turns out that when Elisabeth was delivered at 9:17am, the umbilical cord was around her neck and she wasn’t crying and responding how she should have right after delivery. She also started pooping right away. Elisabeth eventually did start really wailing after five or six minutes. 🙂 Good sign! But the doctor from the NICU was there and said she needed to be taken down to the NICU for observation.

To be continued….

 

We managed to get a family picture in just before we took the tree down. 🙂

P.S. Go ahead and excuse our Christmas tree decorations hung willy-nilly. I’m not a the-tree-must-be-perfect type of mom, so I let the kids add just about whatever makes their heart content to the tree….as long as it’s Christmas-y.

We tried to get in a few fun events in with the kids before we welcomed Elisabeth into our family. Here’s what the first part of December looked like for us.

We bought a new ornament at the mall with all of our names on it (including our baby girl) and enjoyed the Christmas decorations.

Ruben and Nathan enjoyed some father-son time at Legoland.

Isaac and David enjoyed making an ornament craft, eating candy canes, and meeting Santa at a program through our local Park District.

Actually, David was not excited at all about meeting Santa, but Isaac was curious and decided to give it a go.

Here he is not-so-patiently waiting.

We also made a couple of family gingerbread houses. We enjoy doing this activity every year.

Isaac enjoyed eating the candy just as must as he did making the house.

And finally, the weekend before the baby was born, we attended a Breakfast with Santa event where we had brunch and the kids got to do some fun activities like decorate their own Christmas cookie and create paper bag reindeer.

David was mostly interested in taking hundreds of pictures next to the many Christmas decorations.

All in all, we had a wonderful December 2011. The best part, of course, was being blessed with our baby girl just 11 eleven days before Christmas. She was indeed an early Christmas gift for all of us.