The Wait is Over and Boy was it an Ordeal

From God's Kingdom

A precious Infant descends from above.

In this Miraculous event

Bestowing Blessings to

Our Eternal family

In this earthly Realm.

Little angel in my arms

So many Years to come.

In the above poem I have hidden a clue of the gender of our baby. I will reveal the answer at the end but first I want to share my ordeal.

I never went into full labor on our own so off to the hospital we went early Monday morning to be induced. I had decided I would get my epidural right away since before I had waited and then an emergency would happen and it would take a few hours to get it. I don't like being induced. The labor pains don't build naturally that way and so I rather have the baby come when it wants but I was ready for this little one to come.

The doctor at the hospital that day was one of the doctor's at my office I didn't see very often. The nurses informed me that he doesn't like his patients to get an epidural until they are in active labor. I should have packed up them and rescheduled for the next day but they assured me that he wouldn't let me die.

So of course I immediately go into active labor. I haven't taken any birthing classes since Sheila so I am trying to remember breathing techniques. The nurses would leave Ray and I alone for an hour at a time. After about 4 hours I am begging for the epidural. They check me. I am now a 2 but the baby is still way up there.

Four more hours go by. I am dying. The nurse checks again. I am a 3 but the baby is still up there. She goes to talk to the doctor. About 15 minutes later she comes back to tell me no epidural yet. But she will give me IV medicine. She gives me that and keeps asking me if I was feeling it. No I was not. She checked me again. This is maybe an hour from the last time. I am an 8-9. Funny thing is that when she left us I told Ray "just you wait they are going to wait too long and then it will be too late to get my epidural. I will be so mad if that happens."

Now I had already discovered I do not have a good pain threshold and more power to women that can do it without but I love the marvels of medicine. Oh, I also should have taken it as a bad sign when they blew two veins trying to get my IV in. I now have two massive bruises on my arms.

So now I am an 8-9. The nurse runs to get the doctor. He comes is and I am begging for the epidural. He checks and decides I do have time to get it. It takes them about half an hour to get it in. I started feeling it. Relief. Had a couple of contractions. No pain but I do still feel them. They all leave the room again. I start to feel the contractions more and more. They are starting to really hurt again. My feet and legs regain feeling. Ray runs out to tell them and comes back with the epidural guy. He says we have to wait for the doctor because if I am fully dilated I will just have to push without the pain medicine.

The nurse gets there and I am fully dilated. I am so mad by now. They get me ready and I have to push. And of course I would have back labor with this baby. It felt like my tailbone was breaking. Luckily it only took a few pushes to get the baby out. The baby was lined up perfectly and so even though I was exhausted and had to stop pushing when the baby was partly out to regain some strength and didn't think I could go on. Both Ray and the nurse had to get me to stop freaking out and look at them so I could push the last time.

Finally the baby was out. But I still felt everything else and so I didn't get to enjoy the birth as much as with the other two when I felt nothing or very little.

Here are some pictures of the arrival of our beautiful baby.

Daddy cutting the cord.
You may see the sweat rolling off my nose in these two pictures. I was so sweaty and hot.

So out comes the baby and they announce. "It's a GIRL."

They laid her on my stomach and she had tons of dark, long hair. A perfectly round face and nice shaped head. Thank goodness she was straight down.

Kimberly Dawn (If you look at the large words in the poem above the first letter of each word spells out Kimberly) was born at 2:20 p.m. weighing in at 8 pounds 4.2 ounces and 19 1/2 inches long. My shortest baby but my chunkiest. She was over a pound heavier than they anticipated.

After cleaning me and the baby up I got up to use the bathroom and everyone was surprised that I could walk to the bathroom. I told them the epidural was completely gone. I thought using the bathroom would relieve the pressure but nope. I asked for some pain medication but I couldn't have that until I ate. We called down to the cafeteria to get me something to eat.

We called our parents to tell them what it was. As soon as Ray's parents told Sheila and Timmy they had a sister they were at the door with their shoes on. They got to the hospital at around 3:30. Still no food. I am barely perched on the bed because my tailbone still feels like I broke it.

Ray goes out to McDonalds to get me something and while I am finishing that my food finally arrives and they want to take me to my new room. I finally got my pain medicine and it takes effect as I am walking to my new room. I now can say I had a baby all naturally and next time I will go with one of the doctors that let me have an epidural right away so I can enjoy holding my baby instead of writhing in agony.

So those dying to know I did think I was having a girl the whole time. Maybe that is why I called her all the time. Sheila is thrilled. She wanted a girl baby so bad. I came home yesterday afternoon. She is an awesome nurser but she likes to do it every hour in the night so now I have to get her adjusted. I am living off of about 3 hours of sleep a night with snoozing while she is nursing. She likes to be held all the time too. I am so glad Ray has time off to help make the adjustment. But she is a good baby. Doesn't cry much and loves to look around as much as she can.

I will post some more pictures later of ones we took with Ray's camera. I tried to here but I had issues.