Lucy Ellen's Birth Story (finally)

Well, now that Lucy is 2 months old it's about time I post something on her birth story. I'll start with our plans to induce. I had always thought it was silly to induce unless there was a really good reason so that the doctor recommended it, but I changed my mind as her due date was nearing (funny thing). And let me tell you, if you haven't seen my pictures before she came out at the hospital, I was huge. I started to get a little self conscious of being seen in public since my clothes weren't fitting as well and I was huge. It also gets a little tiring hearing "you're huge!" all the time. So anyway, I also wanted my mom to be able to be here for the delivery and for the week after to help me adjust. So Friday, April 30th was the day we decided to induce. April 30th happened to be Scott's mom's birthday as well as Oaks Day here in Louisville which is a holiday (a day before the Kentucky Derby) so I had to make sure the doctor on call would be alright with that day. And it so happened that the doctor on call was the same doctor that delivered my nephew Luke when Katie and Chris lived here six years ago, Dr. Kelly Miller.

So, at 6:00am we arrived at Baptist Hospital East to have our munchkin. It felt so strange to think that we were finally going to meet the little person inside. By about 7:30 they had me all hooked up with the IV and pitocin. It was not comfortable I remember well and I was hungry. They told me not to eat anything after midnight the night before. By about 9:30 the doctor came and checked on me. And I hadn't progressed much, I was about 2 cm. She said she would come back around noon to break my water. In the meantime I had still not progressed except for feeling slight contractions that didn't even hurt yet. Finally around 12:30-1:00, the doctor came to break my water. That was a weird sensation! They told me to let them know when the pain level got to about 4 because then they could give me an epidural. After 5 minutes or so, I asked for the epidural through tears and shivers. I couldn't believe how painful it got so fast. So while it was about a 20 minute wait for the epidural, they gave me statol(sp?) which makes you really loopy so that you don't care as much about the pain. Ha, it definitely made me loopy and i could hardly answer anyone's questions. But at least I was able to relax a bit more. Then the Chinese guy with the needle came in! I am not all sure of what they did back there, but it definitely took the pain away. My mom didn't realize that it would completely numb my legs and feet, and I sensed it made her a bit nervous. So an hour later they checked me and i had progressed a couple more centimeters. Then they switched nurses and the new nurse didn't realize how fast i had progressed since the water broke, so she didn't check on me till about 5:00. When she did, she informed us that I was ready to push. But we had to call the doctor. The doctor needed us to wait a few minutes before i started pushing. At about 5:15 I started pushing. Right away we knew this baby had dark curly long hair. When the doctor came in I did much better because she was a really good coach. I realized I could push much harder. So with Scott and Mom by my side Lucy Ellen was born at 5:48pm with just 30 minutes of pushing. She was 7 pounds even and they said she was 18 3/4 inches (but two days later the pediatrician said 20.5 inches). She looked at me with the cutest expression when they laid her on me and I was filled with emotions I had never felt before. They asked me if I was crying because I was sick or emotional. It was definitely the later. The whole experience was so amazing and impossible to describe the feelings. I was overwhelmed with thankfulness to God for this amazing miracle! Several hours later I got to see my baby again all cleaned up. They had put the cutest yellow ribbon in her hair. I thought for sure she must have been the cutest baby there. And that's the story of Lucy Ellen's birth!