Leila

     Well, she's here! Four weeks ago actually. Leila Rae Yerton, 7lbs. 1oz. 20 in. April 25th at 10:00 PM She was exactly a pound lighter than Hollis at the same length. She's a skinny little thing! But, oh so beautiful. Forgive me for not posting this sooner. ;) Her birth story is more crazy than Hollis'. I had really tough time this time. I've come to the conclusion after two traumatic births that my body was not made for birthing. It's awesome at pregnancy, but terrible at birthing. I'm not going to fill this post with complaining, but I will tell you what happened. I know it's really long.....
       At 10:00 PM Sunday the 24th of April I was lying in bed. I had just had myself a little pity party between God and myself. I told him I was tired of being pregnant, blah blah blah. I told him I couldn't bare the thought of gong as long as I did with Hollis (even though at this time I was only one day past my due date). So, anyway, I was lying in bed, and Dane walked in the room to come to bed, we were talking to one another and all of a sudden I said," Um, I think my water just broke." He said," You think?" So I went to the toilet and sat down. It was just a little trickle, not like the movies where it all comes gushing out. So I still wasn't sure. I called my doula and she said it sounded like it had indeed broken, she told me to call her when I needed her. So I got up, and then the contractions started. The started out about 8 minutes apart and then quickly moved to 6. I was still in denial at this point because I thought there was no way that God was going to let this be it after the pity party I had had about an hour prior. Then when I finally accepted that this was it I thanked God for loving me so much. So, the contractions stayed about 6 minutes apart for the better part of the night. Then at about 3:00 I called Mary (my doula) to come over because things were getting pretty intense and I felt like it might be about time to go to the hospital. When she got there my labor had slowed significantly. She said this happens all the time. Isn't it funny how our bodies work? It was a psychological thing, my body relaxed because I was more at ease with her there. She said I should take that opportunity to rest. So I slept every ten minutes for a few more hours, because the contractions had moved to ten min. apart. At around 6:30 she came into my room and wanted to see how much I had dilated. I was barely at a 2! Labored all night long and barely at a 2?! She said it was time to go to the hospital anyway because it was getting close to the twelve hour window after my water breaking. On the way to the hospital I had a few intense contractions. By the time we got to Baptist my labor had stopped. They gave me a little time to see if it would start again, but it didn't. If my water hadn't been broken for 12 hours at that time they probably would have sent me home, but they had to give pitocen to get the labor moving again. I don't know if you have had both kinds of contractions (natural and induced) but induced contractions are much more intense. I was in agony. I made it through 19 hours of labor with no drugs. After that Mary advised that I get an epidural so that my body could relax. You see I wasn't progressing very fast because I wasn't relaxing through the contractions. So they gave me a low dose epidural, which was so much better than the one I had with Hollis. After that I progressed fairly quickly. At around 5:30 PM I was at a ten. PRAISE THE LORD! But then, there was that darn tornado! They told me I would have to wait a little bit because they had to wheel me into a little cubby hole. Okay, I can deal with that. Even though at this time the epidural was starting to wear off. After that was over, I was like," Okay let's get this little girl out!" Then they told me that there was only one doctor there and that he was in the other room delivering. (I had a previous c-section so they did not want me pushing without the doctor there.) "Okay, but I'm starting to get impatient." My epidural had really worn off now. Then he had to go do an emergency c-section. "WHAT! Get a doctor in here now or I'm going to start pushing." The nurses said," No you can't push yet."  I finally told them that I had signed the waiver notifying me of the risks of a vbac and that I was going to start pushing. They could not agree to it but stayed with me, and I began pushing on my own. Finally the doctor came and asked how I was doing. I told him I was about to cuss him out and he said that I couldn't say anything to him that he hadn't heard before. Ha!! I pushed for an hour and a half and finally Leila was here at 10:00 PM exactly. 24 hours from the start of my labor. I had torn almost all the way and he began sewing me up. He had to give me a numbing shot because I could feel everything. After that all of my family came in to get a quick peek at Leila. All I could think off was how bad I needed to sleep. I hadn't slept in like 40 hours. Then the nurse said I needed to get u[ and use the restroom because I didn't want to have a catheter. At this point I said," yes I do want a catheter". She said," no you don't." So, I  obeyed, protesting all the way. I got to the bathroom and asked Dane to hold me up while I sat there. I was so exhausted that I couldn't even hold myself up. I kept telling him, "I can't do this, I need to get in bed." That was the last thing I remember saying. Conk. I passed out. I was in and out of consciousness for a few minutes. I could hear Dane saying,"Help!" Then it was like you see on TV. This blurry vision of nurses swirling around me. I could hear them saying,"Heather, Heather!"  Then I woke up in a wheelchair still kind of groggy. I heard my nurse say in a panicked tone, "I checked her blood pressure before she got out of bed and it was fine!" Then someone was shoving an alcohol swab in my face saying, "smell this". I said, "Why am I smelling alcohol, What happened?" They told me I had passed out. My mom told me that I actually said, "What now?!" Ha! Then I said, "I told you I didn't have to go to the bathroom." Sarcastically of course. Then came the shakes. Oh, those dreaded shakes.My blood pressure was fine and had passed out simply from exhaustion. Finally after messing with me for what seemed like an eternity, they moved me to the recovery room. AAH, silence at last. Except for my precious one. We stayed two nights, then we got to bring her home. I had never been so glad to see my bed. Isn't it awesome that we have such a great reward at the end of such a difficult task. After all that, my Leila girl was totally worth and would do it again. My journey to recovery was not quite over yet, but I'll tell that story in the next post.