Happy Birthday Lori Mae!!! (Just a few days late)

Seven years ago today, I became the mother of five. I gave birth to my third daughter and my world became even sweeter than it already was. I have been thinking about what to post for the last couple of days when it occured to me that I should write her birth story. So here it goes. Bear with me please as it has been a few years. :-)

We were living in San Antonio at the time of my pregnancy with Lori. Daniel was working for the military and I spent my days taking care of the other four children. We had went to see a few doctors during my pregnancy but we weren't taken with any of them so we decided to receive our medical care at Austin Area Birthing Center in North Austin. We had used their services with the birth of our second child and absolutely fell in love so it was well worth the drive for us.

During my pregnancy I had been put in the hospital once or twice for contractions so we were convinced that she was going to come early and we decided to go to Austin and stay with Daniels parents while we waited on her arrival. We thought that she was on her way several times during the next few weeks. I even started having contractions on Christmas morning!  She hung on past her due date and I was still pregnant when my first postnatal visit was scheduled.  We decided just to keep the visit and go in to get checked out and talk about our options with our midwife.

The morning of our appointment I was having a few contractions here and there but as usual for me, nothing serious. When we saw our midwife Jean she suggested that we allow her to check my cervix and if conditions were favourable then she would try and cause a few contractions. Sure enough, I was dilated to a 4.5 and 80-90% effaced so she went ahead and did what she knew would stir things up.  We left the birth center with instructions to call if anything started to happen or if my water broke. We went to lunch and then we went and walked around the mall, talking about the kids and what the new baby would be like. It was very calm and relaxing but there were NO CONTRACTIONS! 

By the time we arrived back at my in-laws home I was in a very foul mood since I was tired of being pregnant and my midwifes suggestion hadn't worked so I went in and took a nap. That afternoon I woke up to a few measly contractions and I spent some time with Daniel and the kids. Right as it was getting dark I decided that I would go for a walk around the neighborhood by myself. I needed some alone time with God to cry and pray. Just as I was ready to walk out the door, I felt a huge gush or water. I turned and looked at Daniel and said,"Oh my goodness, my water broke!!!".  Daniel and I started to rush at that point. Usually, if my water breaks I have only 30 minutes before the baby is born and the birth center was about an 45-50 minutes away. Daniel and I told the kids goodbye and hopped in the van before we even called the midwife. Big mistake!!! When we did call her, she told us not to come in until I started having contractions that were hard to talk through. So we went and got a bite to eat and waited. Finally I started to have pains so we called and told our midwife that we were on our way.

When we arrived our midwife checked me and found that I was around 6cm dilated and fully effaced so we thought that we were well on our way to having this baby. Boy were we wrong. I sat on the birth ball, took herbs, and walked to no avail. Ms. Lori Mae was not ready to make an apperance.  The midwife told us to get comfortable and try and get some rest so we climbed in bed and tried to go to sleep. This was harder than you might think since there was another woman there giving birth and she was making progress a lot faster than I was. I found myself laying there in bed and listening for the sounds of a baby and praying for that couple. At around midnight I heard their babies first cries and said a prayer of thanks to God for a safe delivery for them.

Soon after, my midwife came in with a coffee cup and woke me. She said in a very apolegetic voice,"Our blender is broken but I fixed you some castor oil in some orange juice. I think  if you stir it and then gulp it really fast then that will work. It worked for the couple that just had their baby." Needless to say, I was not looking foward to chugging an ounce of castor oil no matter what it was mixed with but I was was sooooo ready to hold my baby that I was willing to try anything. So I stirred visciously and then I chugged. I thought I had drank it all but to my dismay, when I put the cup down it still had a pretty good size swig left. So I repeated the whole process. All I can say is YUCK!!!! Never again. I'll just start charging rent for my womb if another one decided to go overdue. :-)

So we waited. And waited. And then the tummy issues struck and that's all I need to say about that. We changed midwives somewhere around 6 in the morning and I was up walking again.  I would progress to around 8 cm dilated and then that was it. The baby was posterior (which means she was turned facing my belly instead of my back.) and this was causing me to have severe back labor. Not fun! Finally around 9:30 in the morning, the owner/head midwife walked in and said, "Let's have this baby!". At this point I was just about ready for a c-section sans epidural if that is what it took after all of that back labor. Jean assured me that I did not need a c-section and that the baby would be here in no time. She asked me to push with my next contraction and guess what? I went from an 8 to complete! I was ecstatic when I heard this and I started getting excited to see my baby. Within the next 10 minutes I was holding her. It was such a relief! After that we just laid in bed and held her. Daniel got up and gave Lori her first bath and I went and took a shower. We were headed home after just 4 hrs of recovery. Her brothers and sisters couldn't wait to hold her.

I'm so glad that I finally typed her birth story. Typing it made me remember lots of details that I wouldn't want to forget.

I plan on including all of my birth stories here in the near future so stay tuned!