Clara is now 3 months old, and I’m just now finding a moment to write a blog post about her birth – I guess that’s a great clue as to how life has been with 5 kids!
I was going to be 39 weeks on Tuesday – Jan. 25, and so on Sunday – Jan. 23, I was REALLY ready to just have her. We had spent weeks wondering if she was going to be born early – like around 37 or 38 weeks. Those days can be SO long – the days spent wondering… “Am I going to have a baby today? Or tomorrow?” I kept wondering how much food I should buy at the grocery store each weekend to prepare for the week ahead because I knew if we had a baby early in the week – not much cooking would get done. Well that Sunday, I went to Aldi, and decided it was a great opportunity to do a tea party for the kids because I think our Sunday night life group had been cancelled due to someone coming down with Covid. I also went on a walk that day to try to get Clara to come. That night we also played a board game with the girls after Hannah and Josiah went to bed – I guess I had mother’s intuition that the baby would come soon. We also all spent time that evening telling Clara it was time for her to come – I remember Jason said to her – speaking to my stomach – “Clara, this is your Father speaking…it is time for you to come now.” I was done being pregnant, and my whole family was done with me being pregnant too!
That night around 4:30am I woke up with contractions. I started timing them and woke Jason up around 5:30. We called and texted both his mom and dad around 5:30 but no one answered. Finally around 6:00am we got in touch with Randy (my father-in-law) and he came over. We made it to the hospital around 6:30 and to the back right around 7:00 when the staff shift was taking place. When they first checked me, I was 5 cm. Even though we told them many times that I had the potential to have a really fast labor – and they kept telling us they were moving things along as quickly as possible for us – there seemed to still be a lot of red tape and things still seemed to be moving along slowly to me. I even told them that my doctor had already had me do the pre-epidural blood work at a recent visit so I wouldn’t have to get that done. Anyways, I said a lot of prayers during this time that I would stay at 5 cm so I could get an epidural.
It wasn’t until 9:00am that we finally were speaking to the anesthesiologist. Then, right before he was ready to do the epidural, he couldn’t find my name in the system! So more urgent prayers were prayed. This whole time I had been having contractions, but not that close together and they were definitely manageable. The worst part was that nagging fear that things would pick up quickly before they could get the epidural in. When the anesthesiologist and his student or assistant were finally there getting everything ready to go, the main guy was letting the student (I gave birth at a teaching hospital…) do all the measuring of the medicine and talking her through everything. It seemed by how he was talking that she was a new student, so I even asked “Who will actually be doing the epidural?” and he laughed and told me it would be him, but that even he was “still learning” because he was a resident… not sure if that was meant to comfort me? Lol – not the best timing. It’s interesting to be a teaching hospital because you get to witness a lot of teaching/learning taking place. When he was doing the epidural, he had to show his superior and they talked through things a lot right before the resident did it. Anyways – I was told the attending anesthesiologist was amazing, so that made me feel a bit better. And ultimately, they did a great job and it was the best epidural I had for any of my births. After I got it, it took away just about all of the pain, but it also really slowed down my labor.
So from about 9:00 – 3:00pm we were just “waiting” with very slow progress. It was the weirdest thing actually being “bored” during labor. I read my book on my Kindle app, Jason read his book. At one point I was like, “Is there anything you want to talk about before we have this baby?” lol – It was more quiet time to talk than we are used to haha. I started to think about my in-laws watching my kids and how weird it was to be about to have a baby when my kids were at gymnastics, just having a normal day… At one point – probably around 1:00, they asked if I wanted pitocin but I said not yet – to just give it another hour or so and check me again, and after more prayers – I did start progressing more and I never had to get pitocin. Also, this was also the first birth that they let me eat! They brought an entire tray of food! I had a popsicle, jello, sweet tea, and lots of cranberry juice while in labor!
Right before 3:00pm I had a lot of strong contractions and they checked me and I was ready to push! They brought in a whole team of people and got me all ready to go – which is a really awkward position – if you’ve ever given birth before – lol and anyways, then no contraction came! We all waited there for probably 5 minutes which seemed like an eternity! Finally when I had a contraction it just took a few contractions/pushes for her to be born. She was born at 3:30 pm on Monday, Jan. 24. She was 7lb, 1 oz and 21 inches. She was born completely perfect and pink and they all marvelled at how clean she was lol! Even though she cried when she was born, she didn’t cry much at all that first day/night. After we did skin-to-skin for awhile and she ate, they took her to get weighed and she just laid there and didn’t make a sound!
I forgot to mention that when I first arrived they gave me a Covid test and about half way through my labor my nurse told me I had tested positive for Covid! I had absolutely no symptoms – every time they took my temperature it was completely normal. Most of the nurses didn’t really seem to mind and some didn’t even care if I had my mask on or not. I ended up having it on while I was pushing – which had been a fear of mine – but really it wasn’t that bad because the epidural had worked so well – so that was a huge praise! Lucy and Hannah had had Covid a few weeks before, and then my in-laws got it from them, but the rest of us never seemed to be sick at all, so it was definitely a surprise to test positive. They let me be with Clara and really it wasn’t a big deal other than that every person who entered our room at the hospital had to gear up in disposable covid gear.
Instead of having lots of hospital visitors, family and friends came to our house to meet Clara. Randy and Ruth watched the kids for the first few days, then after we came home, my parents and Kristen and her kids came to visit. Jason took a week off of work and took care of the kids so I could rest and focus on Clara. I’m already fuzzy on who stayed when but I know Kristen and her kids were there awhile which gave my kids something to do – playing with cousins! My mom stayed for awhile to help with the kids, and Randy and Ruth took care of kids too. I was so blessed with not only all this help but also so many meals that friends brought to us! We didn’t have to really cook until early March!
Clara is such a sweet baby. She has been from the very beginning. We had a few rough weeks here and there mainly due to sleeping issues. I think the crux of the problem was that she didn’t want to go to sleep in her crib and I hadn’t been able to focus my full attention to sleep training her. Now, at 2.5 months, things are better and she is on a pretty consistent eat-play-sleep rhythym but she still prefers sleeping in someone’s arms than in her bed. After she falls asleep, she’s fine being transferred, but next thing we need to figure out is putting her in her bed awake. So far she has had phases of preferring: falling asleep in our arms, the baby carrier, the carseat, and the baby swing – haha. At night, she slept mainly in our room next to my bed until mid-April. She travelled for the first time during Masters Week to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and then to stay at Aunt Kristen’s. And right now, we are returning from a trip back to Atlanta to celebrate cousin Wyatt’s baptism and Easter! As hard as it can sometimes be, I love the baby stage. It is full of so much sweetness. I’ve been trying to soak in as many sweet cuddles as I can with this sweet baby girl of mine. After so much worry (due to Covid and Covid Vaccine during my pregnancy), I can’t help but be overjoyed and full of thanksgiving every time I look at baby Clara. Thank you Lord doesn’t seem to cut it, but I’ll give him the praise anyways for this HUGE gift!
