Lyric's Birth

This is a fair warning to anyone reading this that this post is going to be incredibly long. If you don't want to read about my birth story, then you can just experience it through photos at the bottom of this post.

I'm sitting here, and it's Christmas Eve, and I can't believe how much our lives have changed in the last week. One week ago today, we were a family of 3, and Eric and I were heading to the hospital for me to be induced into labor. I had to be induced at 37 weeks pregnant because I had a liver disease called cholestasis brought on my pregnancy. My doctor didn't want me to go past 37 weeks because of increased risks of still birth the longer I was pregnant.

I can not tell you how incredibly terrified I was to get the call Tuesday morning, December 17th, that I needed to be at the hospital at 10:00 that night to start the induction. I had no idea what to expect from labor, especially being induced 3 weeks early. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, and I was just so scared and overwhelmed. I was so ready to see our baby girl, but I really didn't want to go through the labor process. :)

My husband and I said goodnight to our oldest child, Shaun, and left for the hospital. I was a nervous wreck the whole way there and pretty much in tears. An induction was the last thing I wanted. I wanted my baby to come completely naturally, but that wasn't to be for us. We got to the hospital, and they set us up in our labor and delivery room. I was supposed to be started on a cervix ripening medicine at midnight, but they had an emergency c-section and then another woman come in ready to give birth. So, we ended up being pushed back to 4am start the medicine. I was told to try and get some rest, yeah right. I couldn't sleep at all. They had to give me medicine to calm my nerves and help me sleep, and then I only slept about 2 hours.

By 8am I was having mild but irregular contractions. My cervix was softening, but it still hadn't opened at all, so in goes the second dose of cervix medicine. With this second dose I started having contractions much more, ranging from every 2 mins to every 5 mins. They weren't super strong, and I was dealing with them okay. At the end of the 4 hours they checked and I had dilated to 1cm and was softened more. At this time they let me get out of bed and go soak in the big jacuzzi tub for a little while. My back pain was getting worse, so this was definitely a very welcomed changed. I was only allowed to soak for about 30 minutes, then I had to be started on pitocin, oh how I hate that drug. About an hour into the pitocin my pain level was significant, especially in my back, and I didn't know how much I could take of this medicine, and I was praying it would work quickly. They checked me, and I had only progressed to 1.5cm, and I knew I needed some pain relief so I could rest and make it through the rest of this labor. An hour later I received an epidural, and it was sweet relief. It worked perfectly, and I was able to sleep for a little while.

After a couple of hours they checked me again, and I really hadn't made any progress, and my doctor decided to break my water to try and get things moving along. Breaking my water definitely changed things. They made me sit up for a while to get baby girl to drop, and this change of positions made things more intense. I started feeling pain on my right side; it wasn't too bad, but it made me nervous that I was going to start feeling more as I went along. I let the nurse know, and she said it was because they had me sitting up and once I could lay down the epidural should work again. I was really hoping she was right.

 After sitting up for awhile they laid me down, and my pain just continued to get worse. At this point I had no idea that I had a button I could push to give me some extra medicine in my epidural. We called the nurse in, and she let me know about the button, so I pushed it trying to get some relief. It didn't work. After some time the pain was getting more serious so they called in the anesthesiologist to check out what was going on. He gave me a stronger dose of medicine, and in a few minutes it helped ease my pain some, but not completely.

An hour or so later the pain was getting super intense, so they called the anesthesiologist back in. I believe he checked the position of the epidural at this point, and it was fine, so he gave me another bolus. It was supposed to work within 15 minutes, but 15 minutes later I was hurting worse than I'd ever hurt in my life. The back pain was ridiculous, and I began to lose control. I was shaking from the pain, at this point I had thrown up 3 times during my labor, and I was so exhausted. I began crying out with each contraction, praying and wishing it would end. My mom, my sister, and my amazing husband were all in the room with me. They took turns holding my hands, rubbing my back, trying to cool me off with rags dipped in ice water. They all encouraged me and helped me to keep breathing. It was amazing what they all did to help me get through it.

They came in to check me since the pain was so intense, and I was dilated to around 7-8 cm. I was in the throws of the most intense part of labor and was progressing quickly after barely progressing at all for the entire day.

 I had to get everyone to sit me up to get me through the rest of the labor. Laying down just wasn't working, and while my epidural wasn't helping the pain in my uterus, I couldn't feel my butt or legs, so I couldn't stand up. Once they sat me up, I got really focused knowing I didn't have much longer. With my husband on one side of me and my sister and my mom taking turns on the other, I got in the zone, calmed myself down, and started breathing through the contractions. I became very quiet at this point, and with each contraction had to close my eyes to focus and breathe. After an hour of doing this, they checked me again, and I was fully dilated, but baby still had to make her way down a little bit more. So I sat back up, and I started breathing through the contractions again. We did this for one hour, and I could barely stand the pain, even with breathing through. I wanted to give up and be done. I began feeling more pressure in my bottom, and I was praying they'd be in soon to tell me to push. They did come in and had me do a practice push, and said it was time. My doctor came in, and we started getting to work.

Pushing was sweet relief. While each contraction was still super painful, the pushing gave me purpose and helped me get through the pain. I was pushing like I was supposed to, but baby still wasn't coming out, so the doctor had to give me some help. After a little over an hour of pushing I felt the most amazing relief when I watched my baby girl leave my body and be placed on my chest. I can't tell you how amazing that moment was at 3:11am after 23 hours of labor. It was definitely the most incredible moment of my life. I could not believe I had just given birth to the most beautiful little girl I'd ever seen. My sister said that I said, "I just pushed a baby out of my body!" I don't remember that, but it was funny. Eric says it was amazing to see the difference on my face when Lyric was placed on my chest.

Here we are now 6 days later, and I still can't believe how God created women's bodies to be able to carry and grow a human inside of them for 9 months, then be able to withstand and survive such excruciating pain, and then push a baby from our bodies. It's such an incredible miracle, and I am so in awe. Our little girl is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen, and she is so sweet. She nurses like a champ and seems so happy and content. She is adored by her big brother and my husband and I. We are so thankful to be able to experience this after almost 4 years of desiring to have a baby and adopting our precious son. It's also a little bittersweet because it makes us realize how much we missed with our son by adopting him when he was 6 and missing those first precious years, but we are so thankful for the future we have together as a family. God is good and has blessed us so very much. This Christmas day I am overwhelmed we how blessed we are, and I'm so in love with my little family God has given me.

Now on to the pictures. Below you'll find my birth story told through photos taken by my mother, husband, and friend, Amy. I hope you enjoy. I still get teary eyed every time I go through these photos.

Lyric was 7lbs 1oz and 20 inches long. She would've been huge if I'd gone to full term!

Nursing her for the first time and just so in awe of her.

So incredibly happy!

And later that morning Eric went home to get our son, and he was able to come meet his baby sister for the first time. Here are a couple of those photos.

If you've stuck with us this long and read the whole story, then thank you. Now you can be treated with a cuteness overload as you see this next photo of our beautiful baby girl on the day we came home.