Thursday, January 29, 2015

Clover's Birth Story

Now that Clover is already six weeks old, I am finally getting around to posting about her birth.  It was, happily, very uneventful.  

On December 14th, per my usual, I decided I was done with being pregnant and took castor oil.  Two tbls in the morning, and then, when nothing much seemed to be happening but some very light cramping, two more in the evening.  I think you should never do more than one tbls for the second dose, for those of you who are thinking about trying it yourself and tend to have fast labors.  

That evening I "confessed" to Timothy that I had taken castor oil and told him we would have the baby that night.  He wasn't concerned.  I even went so far as to try and find someone to sleep at our house to watch the kids if we needed to leave.  That didn't work out, but since I wasn't feeling any contractions, I decided not to make further preparations and just went to bed.  

I woke up around 3:00 am because I was having contractions.  I tried to sleep through them, or between them, but finally realized that wasn't happening.  To keep myself occupied, I had Timothy get me an alarm clock so I could time the contractions.  That's when I realized they were 2-3 minutes apart.  I told Timothy this disconcerting news and he jumped out of bed and started getting ready to go to the hospital.  I told him I wasn't sure it was time to go to the hospital because my water hadn't broken.

Please forgive my pregnancy brain on this water breaking issue.  With all of my other children (barring Emeline who was delivered via c-section early) my water broke.  That was my clear signal that things were really happening.  

My water did not break with Clover.  I kept expecting it to.  It never did.  This threw me off.  

So while I was still protesting that we didn't need to rush to the hospital, Timothy was ignoring me and getting my stuff and calling his parents to come watch the kids.  Even when we were in the van driving toward the hospital, I was still protesting that we should wait until his parents got to our house before we left.  Timothy disagreed.

While in the van, heading toward Davis Hospital, the contractions became dramatically more painful.  It was an unpleasant drive.  When we arrived, we had to go through the emergency room since it was 3:00 am.  The person who checked us in was a little obtuse.  He kept asking me questions while I was squatting next to a chair trying to breathe through contractions.  I wanted to hit him and tell him to ask my husband!  

I was finally admitted and Timothy and I made our way to the maternity part of the hospital.  There was a scary emergency with another mom going on when we arrived so nobody paid much attention to us for a little while.  We saw the other mom get wheeled to an operating room for an emergency c-section.  The tension was palpable.  (I asked later and both mom and baby were okay.)  We waited until there was a nurse free to take us to a room.  Then she disappeared again for awhile.  

This whole time I felt like I had to pee.  I know that is too much info, but it was such a different feeling from previous deliveries when my water broke earlier in the process.  There was more pressure along with the normal feeling of a contraction.  I kept ducking into the bathroom.  When the nurse finally said she really needed to get a monitor on and check me, I reluctantly agreed.  Nothing hurst worse than lying flat on your back during a contraction (except, of course, when the baby comes out).  

I was at a nine.  Thank you, Timothy, for rushing me to the hospital. It is because of you we didn't deliver by the side of the road.

Once the nurse realized how close I was, she went and informed my doctor who was conveniently already there because of another patient.  He never would have made it in time otherwise.  When the doctor came he broke my water.  That was different.  And gushy.  A few pushes later, Clover was born.    


She was gorgeous right from the beginning.
In a lot of these pics, there is a bunch of goop from where someone tried to attach a hair bow.  I would have preferred less goop, but the bow was cute before it fell off.




Tiny footprints!!


Clover is one of my most sensitive-skinned children.  After the first day of wearing hospital provided clothing she started to get a rash.  I took her out of all the hospital stuff and put her in clothes and blankets from home.  Then I told the nurses not to let any soap touch her.  They were very nice about it and the rash went away pretty quickly.  (She has a rash right now, which is baffling me because all the preventative measures that have worked with my other children aren't doing the trick for her.)

Because I am related to Megan and all people love Megan--that goes without saying--my delivery nurse made sure I was put in the largest room and that my recovery nurse knew that I was Megan's sister.  I was taken care of well, and it was nice to be away from lice and leaky basements and my older six children--even if it wasn't the most pain-free vacation ever.  Plus, I got to snuggle a newborn, mostly undisturbed, for two days.  Excellent.

Welcome to our family Miss Clover Mildred.  We sure are thrilled to have you!!

Born at 4:38 am, 6 lbs and 13 oz, 21 inches long.  Perfect in every way.

1 comment:

kami said...

Yeah for no problems and complications!