Lillian Margaret

I'm going to start this blog post by saying that God has really looked after our family this last week. I was supposed to have an appointment on Friday afternoon to get checked again before the induction and see if she could strip my membranes to help along the induction on Monday. Well, at work I get a call from my Mom saying that my Dad is being life lighted to Topeka for a possible heart problem. Being a work week, my boss was there so I called her up and said I was leaving (Thanks Amy for taking over for me!). Nice of me to tell my boss what to do. So, I jet off to get to my Mom who needed someone there too. When I got to the hospital my Dad was sitting there joking being the great guy that he is. Once the shock of him being flown to a bigger hospital was a little worn off we all kinda thought it was no biggie and all was just being blown out of proportion.

I drove Mom down as my sisters followed. They said Saturday morning he would have a heart cath to see what was going on if anything. Again, we just figured that he would go home Saturday afternoon.

Saturday came and Mom called us all with the most scary news of our lives. Dad did have a heart attack on Friday and he had 2 arteries completely blocked and 2 others that were getting that way. Sunday morning a quadruple bypass was scheduled.

Again, God was answering so many prayers that day. We could feel it with every good update during surgery. Things were going so, so well! He got out of surgery and we got up to see him. We were all there as he was waking up and passing all the first tests to see how he made it threw surgery. It was scary to see him like that and know how much pain he was in.

The induction was still up in the air. Before surgery Dad kept telling us to just do it and get him a new granddaughter. After surgery he of course could not talk due to the tube. After things were looking so well I told him that he was doing so well that we would go ahead and go for it. Since he couldn't talk, he gave us a thumbs up. I cried. I did not want to leave Sunday night until I could see him without the tube down his throat. Knowing that he wanted us to go for it though helped me but it was still hard. So, we finally left around 10:30 since they were taking so long to take the tube out, we did not get to see him without it until he was home.

He came home on the same day as us from the hospital! Pretty remarkable that you can have a baby and go home just one day sooner than open heart surgery!!

So, with only about 4 hours of sleep Sunday night, we woke up and headed to the hospital. The induction started with the cytoteck (sp?) at 6:30 and I was having contractions about 8 minutes apart. Since the cytoteck wasn't doing enough work to break my water we did it again at 8:30. This made my contractions about 2 minutes apart but did not hurt in the least bit. At 10:45, we started pitocin since I still wasn't far enough for my water to be broken. At 11:20, they upped the pit to 2 mu. Water was finally broken at noon when I was still only a 2-3 cm. The epidural guy came in at 1:00 just as the contractions were starting to get really uncomfortable. Enough so that I was having Dennis rub my back some.

At 2:00, I was still only a 3-4 cm and the epi was starting to wear off on the right side. At 2:30, epi guy came back and started working on getting the right side to work. It helped a bit but I kept feeling it. At 3:30 I was a good 4cm maybe a 5 if she stretched it really well. At 4:00 I was still a 4 but her head was in a better position and I was a little thinner than before. The epi guy came back and tried to work his magic again since it was still not working correctly. He really was doing his best!

At 6:00 is when things got emotional. I was STILL at a 4. Before the doctor even said a word, I knew that what she was going to say. She said that if I was still at 4 at 8:30-9, that we would have to start talking about a c-section. I just started to cry, knowing that it was a good possibility and that it would happen. The crying wasn't because of a c-section though, it was because my Dad was already going to be recovering from a HUGE surgery, I didn't want to also. I wanted to be able to go see him sooner rather than later. Since I was finally not feeling a dang thing, and I had so much of the epidural in me even my eyes were feeling heavy I tried vary hard to sleep for a bit.

Even though I was awake the entire time, I was as relaxed as I could get. Listening to her heart rate and keeping my eyes closed. At one point I thought her heart rate dropped quite a bit and I asked Dennis what it was. He lied to me saying it was about 120. I think it was a little lower than 100. With the talk of the c-section anyway he didn't want me to worry any more than I already was. The Dr. came back in around 7:30 and I quit pretending to sleep. She went a head and checked me again since I was awake and surprise! I was almost complete! "Oh thank God" are the exact words I said.

They started setting up and about 25 minutes later, she was ready for a few "practice pushes". It only took two pushes and she was born at 8:02. (It was probably technically 7:59 since the one clock was a few minutes a head but everything legal says 8:02.) The epi guy just took a seat right behind Dennis. I found it quite odd and uncomfortable that he was there just watching. Had he not tried so hard to get it to work and if I had to push for an hour like Will, I probably would have yelled at him to leave. But oh well, we had our baby girl.

We were so shocked to see the dark hair! They got her all cleaned up while the Dr. was finishing getting me all ready and stitching me up. I had to have a shot to help contract my uterus because of all the pit I was on. She will not go over 16 mu of pit but I was at 24. The reason was because even at such a high dosage, I was still not contracting at a regular pace. I would have four good contractions and then have about four minutes before I had another one.

The next morning was the greatest moment, getting to see big brother Will's reaction to his baby sister. He could not stop smiling. He is in love!

Even now when at home, he crawls up on the couch and pats his lap saying "baby". He still refuses to say her name but that's okay, he will eventually.

So there you have it.

Lillian Margaret
8lbs even
20 1/2" long
3/12/12 at 8:02p.m.

We think she looks an awful like her brother.