Hope's Birth Story

I REALLY should be writing my thank you notes and addressing Hope's announcements but since my sweet little girl will be 2 months old next week I figured I needed to document her amazing birth story.

Sooooooooo, here it goes...

On July 29, 2009 our precious daughter made her entrance into this world. Life hasn't been the same since!!!!!

On the morning of the 29th I went in for my weekly doctors appointment. As mentioned previously, I had not been feeling well....my blood pressure was high (Preeclampsia was ruled out by my 24 hour urine test the Friday before) and I had been having stomach pains earlier that morning. Well, when the nurse took my blood pressure that morning it was the highest it had ever been so my doctor and I discussed doing another 24 hour urine test but we both felt that I needed to be admitted to the hospital ASAP.......even if the test came back negative but my blood pressure remained high we were going to deliver Hope the next morning.

Thankfully I had packed my hospital bag the night before....how's that for perfect timing? So I ran home quickly to get my stuff (and my husband) and headed to the hospital for the birth of our daughter.

Once admitted, the nurse took my blood pressure and it was GREAT....crazy, I know. However, I still wasn't feeling well and the monitor was picking up a significant amount of contractions. I was given a shot of Terbutaline....which did nothing (the 2 other times I had been given it my contractions stopped immediately) so the doctor checked my cervix and sure enough, I was 1cm dilated and she could feel her head. Remember, I could not go into labor because of my classical incision.....I HAD to have a C-section. So, the Doctor calmly said....this is an emergency (nothing compared to John's birth) and we are delivering her tonight.

Now the prepping began. Grammy and Papa arrived and Grams (thank God she flew home early from her vacation. I guess her Mom instinct knew best) put John to bed and headed to the hospital too. Our doctor was so sweet....she knew I wanted my mom to put John to bed (I was having a hard time leaving him and didn't want his routine to be messed up) so she held the delivery off until she arrived.

I was wheeled back sometime around 7:45pm and at 8:08pm I heard my baby girl let out the most beautiful cry. My eyes filled with tears as the amazing Dr. Abrahms (John's Neo for the 110 days he spent in the NICU) held her up for me to see. My response was...She's HUGE!!!! I guess it's all relative though. The doctors assumed she would be somewhere around 4 pounds so when the scale flashed 5 pounds 3 ounces we were definitely shocked.

Now, the scary part....first, the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck 2 times AND my uterus HAD begun to rupture (2 inches)....exactly what we didn't want to happen.

I thank God daily for my amazing doctors because if I had not gone to the hospital that day my baby girl would not be here with us. How awesome is our God?