Walk In Faith: Bringing Lillian into this World

I realized that I never wrote about the birth of sweet Lillian so I am going to share it now. I love using this blog as a journal and being able to go back and read posts so it just doesn't seem complete without the story of my birth in it. As I said in a previous post, I never thought I would make it to my due date and technically I didn't, I was an hour shy of making it to May 6th. Lillian came into our world at 11:19pm on May 5th weighing in at 7lbs 3oz of perfect:) My water broke at exactly 2am on May 5th, yep 2am I started labor and didn't have a baby until 20 hrs later, it was a VERY long day! So back to my water breaking, I was asleep and felt a very strong urge to go to the bathroom, which wasn't anything new being 9 months pregnant, but this was different because I felt like I wet the bed so I jolted out out bed and ran to the bathroom and a gush of water came out and I was pretty sure my water broke. I yelled at Bryce and said "I think my water just broke! This is it we're having a baby today!" I thought any moment contractions would kick in and we would be on our way to the hospital, well that's not exactly how it turned out. We waited for two hours and still nothing! I was able to shower and get ready, eat, make coffee and get all my things packed up. My doctor was out of town so I called the on call doc and he told me to just go in and that labor should be starting soon. At around 4am we made our two minute drive to the hospital and got all checked in and started walking the halls just waiting for some action. I was on cloud nine in the hospital! I was so thankful to be there anticipating the birth of a full term baby. The first lap Bryce and I took around the hall we saw a door with a butterfly on the outside. I had a butterfly on my door the last time I was in labor and delivery so we knew that the mother's arms in that room were empty and that her precious baby was in heaven. We both looked at each other and started crying and praying for her. We were humbled and grateful that we made it this far and continued to walk and walk and walk. We walked the halls for SO long and not one contraction. I so badly didn't want to get induced but knew my time was coming before the doctors would intervene. They let me walk for 6 hours, so around noon I got induced and instantly the action started happening. I was still determined to not have an epidural at this point. Bryce was an amazing coach and stood by my side for every contraction. Our nurse, who was so wonderful and encouraging, helped too. She checked me every hour and I kept making progress, I was at a 6 within a few hours. Then I got in a very hot bath, which felt SO good and dilated two more centimeters before the pain really got intense. I was so miserable and started to get the shakes from being so exhausted. The nurse came in and checked me and there was no progress, for two hours I hadn't dilated any more. She gave me a good pep talk and encouraged me to get an epidural because I was so tense that I wouldn't be able to dilate unless I relaxed. With lots of tears and disappointment I decided to get an epidural. WOW, what a difference!! The guy who gave me my epidural was amazing and had me pain free in a few minutes. At that point I was having contractions every second and he was very calm and patient. So within minutes my labor went from chaos to calm and happy. My nurse was so happy to see my smile again:) And Bryce's color returned to his face. He was so worried about me and watching the pain I was going through. So at this point it was evening, I believe around 6pm. I took a nap and Bryce ate dinner and within a few hours I was able to start pushing. Pushing was really tough with my epidural. I coudn't feel anything and my legs were completely numb so the nurse had to turn off my epidural and I had to push without it. I pushed for two hours and in the last half hour I didn't think I could do it, my doctor and nurse went out in the hall to talk and I just knew they were thinking the same thing. I started to praying really hard and begging God to let me do this without a C-section. When they came back in they said okay one more chance to push real hard, so I gave it everything I could and out came our baby, a beautiful, sweet, precious girl! I was so exhausted and couldn't believe that it was all real. I held my daughter for the first time and don't even remember it until I saw pictures. She came out great, really quiet with her mouth wide open looking for food, she is still that way to this day:) After they got me all stitched up I took little Lillian and took all of her goodness in. She was so calm and tired, she just stared at Bryce and I, it was a very tender moment for us. Labor was so long and intense but once it was all over I felt just fine. I was up and walking right after the delivery since the epidural wore off long before she was out. Things didn't go exactly how I planned but none of that matters when you have a happy, healthy baby in your arms. I think Bryce and i are going to wait some time now before we do it again. This will be my first fall in 2 years that I haven't been in the early weeks of pregnancy and feeling nauseous. I can't wait to enjoy it and not feel sick at the site of pumpkins.