Lil' Pink Cupcake: Meet My Little Girl, Lily

Weighing in at 8lbs 10oz, Lily was born December 7th at 8:49 pm

Her birth story...

I started to labor around 11PM on December 6th. Not knowing if it was the real thing or not I spent most of the night pacing around our bedroom by myself in the dark letting Ron sleep. 5:30AM the next day , December 7th I decided that this might finally be the real deal and woke Ron up,

"babe I don't think you should go into work today..."

We found a contraction timer online and started tracking mine, they were around four minutes apart and one minute in length. I found that as long as I was in constant motion I could keep the pain under control so I would walk back and forth between our front door and our refrigerator. I kept telling Ron that I wished there was a bigger distance between the two because I didn't like having to turn around so much. I started to get antsy and wanted to know what was going on. We called the hospital to see if we should come in, the doctor told Ron that if we wanted to stay home for another hour or so that we should be fine. I was stoked on that, I was having a hard time believing this was really it and was certain that my contractions would just magically stop as soon as I stepped foot into the hospital. We had just been checked the day before and were only 3cm dilated, there was no way this could be it. So I just kept moving.

Stoked to find out baby was on her way

Around 9am the pain was becoming a little more than I wanted to deal with. Sean came by and picked up Sid dog for us and together Ron and I headed off to the hospital.

still smiling at this point

We got to the hospital and checked in. They hooked us up to a contraction monitor, Ron got a kick out of being able to see when I was about to have one and would remind me to breathe every time he saw one coming. One of the nurses came in to do a cervical check to let us know if we were going to be sent home or not. Turns out we were 7cm dilated and counting (!!), so they moved us into a private birthing room and around 10:30AM we called our parents to let them know baby Lily was on her way!

We got a private room that was the size of our apartment. It was nuts!

I was in a crazy good mood at that point. I was kicking ass at managing my labor, and was actually having a pretty good time finding new ways to make the contractions forgettable. Ron and I were laughing and joking the whole time. The doctors kept checking on us to see what was going on because they don't hear laughter coming from the birthing rooms very often. At 1PM, after one of my laps around L&D, my water broke all over my favorite blue slippers. I was 9cm dilated and ready to push. The doctors said with how quickly things were moving along we would probably have our baby within the hour. Everything was moving along VERY quickly.

That's when things got weird.

I pushed and pushed and PUSHED but nothing felt right. I could feel that things weren't progressing the way they should and I started to worry. About 4 hours later it came up that I might need to have a *C* section because the baby wasn't moving past my pelvic bone. That was the last thing I wanted! Our doctor Connie was so supportive of me wanting a natural birth and told me that we were going to try every trick in the book before she would let them cut me. So I just kept pushing harder! I was determined to get that little lady out on my own! I pushed and pushed and PUSHED! Around 7:30PM my body just gave up. I don't remember much from this point on, but according to family members I kept saying things along the lines of "I can't do this" "please help me" "it's too much" "this isn't right" etc. etc. I couldn't breathe. My eyes rolled back into my head and my body started convulsing. I just couldn't do it anymore. That's when Connie made the call and decided that the baby's head was just TOO big and they were going to have to do a *C* section. I was so scared, but ready to stop hurting.

It wasn't until almost 9PM that they had me prepped for surgery. I was heart broken. I had done the whole thing natural and felt like I had suffered thru a whole lot of really bad labor and pushing for nothing.

But it wasn't for nothing, not even close.

Lily was born at 8:49PM.

It would be another hour before I was out of recovery and able to hold her, but just knowing that she was out there somewhere waiting for me was enough to make me tear up with joy. Ron stayed with her while they cleaned her up, took her measurements and did all the other fun stuff they do with a newborn.