Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Evelyn's Birth Story

I'm back!!!  And sweet Evelyn Joy is here!!  I know I have updated facebook with photos and such, but  I thought it was time to get back on here and write down the birth story while it is still somewhat fresh on my mind :)  We have been soaking in every minute with her and being a family of 4.  I love my girls so much and have had so many moments where I just look at how SK is with her sister and just melt :)
As I write right now, Evelyn is snoozing on my chest while SK is sitting beside us watching White Christmas (her choice!).
Ok, on to the birth story....
So last Wednesday (one week ago today....crazy!!!) we finished up getting ready and tidying up the house and then put SK to bed for the night.  Then we sat waiting for the phone call to head to the hospital...and waited....and waited.  They had said for me to expect a phone call around 8-9 p.m.  At 9:05, I called to check.  They were just getting ready to call me to tell us to head on up :)
So we called our neighbor who was going to spend the night with SK at our place and she came over and we headed up to the hospital.  It was a busy night at the hospital (we heard later that there were 18 babies born Wed. night!) so it took a little time to get checked in and situated in our room.  The nurse checked me to make sure I still needed cervadil (really not sure how to spell that...) before doing pitocin in the morning.  She checked and I was 1 cm. dialted and really didn't need to cervadil.  After putting the monitor on me she saw that I was already contracting regularly on my own (but I wasn't feeling it at that point).  She called my doctor to see what he wanted to do and they decided to start me on a very low dose of piton and then up the amount in the morning.
After starting the pitocin we tried to get a little sleep....poor Michael had a chair to sleep on, so he didn't really sleep at all that night...)  I then progressed to 4 cm dialated by the next time she checked me and we decided to go ahead and get the epidural (this was around 6 a.m.) since it looked like I was going pretty quickly.  After the epidural I stayed at 4 cm for another hour or so.  Then they decided to up my pitocin starting every 30 minutes to get things going and not stall out.  I was feeling pretty good after the epidural too :)  Doctor Jewell was confident that we would be pushing by lunchtime, so that was encouraging!
Well...then I got checked at 9 and I was up to 7 cm.  Woohoo!  Well...at this point sorry if it gets too much information...there's your warning...
I had not had a catheter put in yet and needed it :)  So the nurse did right after she checked me.  Within the next contraction I was fully dialated and the epidural wore off.  Yep.  I felt everything.  Just needed to empty my bladder and then I was ready to push :)  Like I said, sorry if that is more than you needed to know!  At that point the nurse was a little crazy running around calling for everyone.  She made a quick call to the anesthesiologist to give me a boost in my epidural and called in for Doctor Jewell to come quickly.  I was laying on my side and feeling so much pressure with each contraction and my nurse made it clear that I stay on my side and don't push!  A couple minutes later the anesthesiologist made it in and gave me some boost and Doctor Jewell comes running in literally panting from running across the hospital.  It was quite the scene to watch everyone scrambling :)  Well...they got all set up and with the next contraction I was feeling some relief (not complete, but not as severe) from the boost of epidural and was told to push :)  Good timing right?  It took 2 contractions and Evelyn Joy made her debut!
Oh...and backing up a little....Dr. Jewell broke my water sometime around 8 I believe and the fluid wasn't clear.  He talked with us about how there would be a NICU nurse in the room for the delivery and he would need to give Evelyn directly to her to have Evelyn checked out and suctioned well and make sure she was breathing well.  He told us not to worry if we didn't hear her cry right away that she would probably just need good suctioning and be fine.  I still got worried though.  We called family and had them praying and prayed ourselves that she would be fine and we would be able to hear her cry quickly.  Fast forward to her birth and she cried immediately!  I remember even when she had just her head out she let out a little peep of a cry that Michael and I both heard.  It was the best thing to hear :)
So Evelyn Joy was born at 9:59 a.m. and weighed in at 6 pounds 1 oz.  Not much bigger than her sister.  She was 19.5 inches long, same as her sister at birth :)  She looks so much like her sister except one thing...the hair!  Both of our girls had about the same amount of hair, but SK had blonde hair and Evelyn has dark hair (I would say black...or maybe really dark brown...)  They have the same mouth and facial features.  Michael and I can see maybe a little difference in their eyes and nose, but not much really.
After Evelyn got all cleaned up Michael brought her over to me.  It was such an incredible moment to have my husband bring our second daughter over, just like he did with SK.  I sit here and tear up because I am still amazed that I am holding a baby in my arms.  This time last year, we didn't know if we would ever experience this again.  I didn't know if I would ever be in a delivery room again and experience all of the fun things of bringing home a newborn from the hospital.  God gave us such a gift and I am amazed every day (and night) when I look at her sweet face that God gave us this child.
She is beautiful.  I love her so much.  And to see her Sk interact with her is heart melting too.  That will have to be a whole other post coming up though....
More blogging to come soon hopefully....right now I am off to be with my girls :)
I do want to remember to blog about how Sk was when she first met her sister and how she is loving her sister so much.  And about how things are going now that we are home....later....I will try to get to that.

4 comments:

  1. Love it. Such a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Amazing! Good work, Michelle. Welcome baby Evelyn Joy!

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  3. A lovely story. I just loved every minute of it. Praise the Lord for two wonderful babies! Love you sister.

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