Three weeks ago, we welcomed home our precious new
little girl. I figured I'd share a
little about the day she was born... It
was a snowy morning as we drove to the hospital to get induced. It's always a nerve-wracking drive to make,
but Skyler's delivery was only 2 1/2 hours long, so at least I was feeling a
little hopeful. However, Kimberly's
birth was nothing like Skyler's birth, other than lasting the exact
same amount of time & ending up with me not getting an epidural, again unfortunately.
Halfway through her labor, I felt like I
was going to pass-out. I told the nurse
that I felt like I needed to eat something because I tend to have low
blood-sugar, so eventually she brought me a popsicle which really helped. Pretty soon I was feeling quite ready
for an epidural, but was soon informed that because my blood pressure kept
going too low, I couldn't have one. My
heart sank & through the rest of my remaining contractions, I mumbled over
and over to Laron that next time, I WAS GETTING AN
EPIDURAL, no matter what! But
fortunately the nurse tried rallying my hopes by announcing that I was dialated
to a 9 1/2, so it wouldn't be much longer...
Things were progressing quickly now, and the frenzy of
nurses & doctors moving to and fro around the room told me that this was
it. And I was okay with that because
I remembered back to Skyler’s birth experience that pushing was my favorite
part. And frankly, I was ready to get
this thing over with. The on-call doctor ended up helping me through the
first push or two, which, to my utter dismay were HORRIBLE! This certainly felt different than
when I’d had Skyler & was definitely not my favorite part! Two more terrible pushes once my real doctor arrived
& finally, our little Kimberly was here!
You can’t even imagine a woman’s relief &
happiness to see her baby after something like this. Not only are you SO glad to be done with
labor, but you feel like you’ve won the ultimate prize. Like your name was just read over a
loud-speaker for some major contest or something. And you forget for a moment how unattractive
& sweaty & pale you must look right now. And you don’t even consider
apologizing for the uncontrollable tears that naturally escape your tired
eyes. It’s done, it’s over, & she’s here.
Fortunately
for the tired mother’s sake, after those first precious few moments,
everyone else suddenly takes over while you try not to be bombarded with
the commotion going on around you. The
room is busy with nurses cleaning up, doctors stitching up & more nurses
weighing & taking care of the baby. “6
lbs. 10 oz,” they announce. I look
proudly at Laron & he looks at me. Not
bad for being a week early, I hint in my raised-eyebrow expression. 18 inches long. Born at 12:02 pm. Dark brown hair. “Oh, and she has a dimple!,” one of
the nurses proudly exclaim. A dimple,
I think to myself. How could she be
any more perfect?
They
hand Kimberly to me, all bundled up and cozy, as if she’d never been disturbed
at all. I reach for my precious bundle,
only to find that I don’t even have the strength to hold her small, precious
body. So instead, she just lays by me on
my hospital bed, in the perfect position so that I can admire her little
face. Who does she look like? I can never tell, but I secretly hope that
everyone will say she looks like me.
After all, this is my little girl. And I am her proud mother.
Soon
we found ourselves alone in the birthing room, just me, Laron, & little
Miss Kimberly. It was strange going from
such commotion to such silence, and so Laron got busy making the long-awaited
phone-calls. Contrary to Skyler’s birth,
I had no desire whatsoever for making conversation, and was
actually quite sad by the fact, because everyone knows that a woman can
tell a better birthing story than a man!
But alas, I just had to sit on the sidelines & smile and nod at the
details Laron choose recap, hoping that people realized that the last 2 ½ hours
weren’t quite as easy as a phone-call summary naturally makes them
sound.
After
the calls were made, I attempted to eat a little lunch, which seemed to help
boost my energy levels a little, but I still felt completely and entirely wiped
out. Again, I suppose that’s a natural
feeling after having just given birth, but this time around it seemed to
take me a full day to feel back to myself energy-wise. Then, after attempting to breastfeed for the
first time, the nurse whisked Laron & the baby off to the nursery for a
proper bath. It didn’t take me long to
figure out what to do with this alone-time…I slowly reclined my hospital bed,
got comfortable & began to drift off into a much needed sleep. But within a few minutes, our visitors began arriving, so I didn’t really get much sleep
until late that night.
All
in all though, we really enjoyed our experience here at the Salt Lake Regional
Medical Center. My nurse was wonderful
(and was able to be with me throughout my whole labor & delivery), they let
us stay in the large birthing room until they needed it for another delivery, they
gave us a candlelight dinner to celebrate the arrival of our new baby before we
left & they just treated us like we were something special, not just
another hospital patient. We were antsy
though to get home to Skyler & our own beds, and were excited to see what
his reaction would be to you. So welcome
home Kimberly Michelle… We love you already!
