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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Lola's Birth Story

Obviously, I had an entire pregnancy fly by without blogging it this time. I guess that's the reality of being the 3rd baby. However, we absolutely cherish our precious 3rd babe just as much as the other 2! 
I jotted down notes about my pregnancy with Lola and also wrote up the story of her arrival. Here they are:
Notes about pregnancy (lots about the sickness/nausea that I captured on behalf of Laura Agaba, a fellow pregnant friend)...
We found out I was pregnant on March 28th. We went out on a date night to serafina that night.Like the other two, I didn't start to get sick until about week 8. This time I did alkali all natural remedies (versus zofran with the others). Nothing really fixed it though. Some things took the edge off a little. I only puked less than a dozen times though, which is much better than how I was with Avery before taking zofran. Here's what I tried:·      Seabands-wore those for a few months pretty much nonstop. They seemed to help a decent bit. One morning I was feeling ok so I bravely took them off...and puked a few minutes later.·      TB of apple cider vinegar with TB of honey in a cup of water first thing in the morning-helped a little, I'd have Jacob bring it to me before I got up or just have it premixed on my nightstand the night before.·      Digestzen oil from doterra-one drop in a couple ounces of water. Really helped take the edge off as nausea lingered mid morning.·      Acupuncture-helped the first couple times in first trimester for a few days. No luck in second trimester.·      Earth mama angel baby morning wellness tea-didn't do a thing for strong nausea, but helped for lighter nausea. I still take it almost daily in the morning with a half of lemon in it.·      Vitamin b complex by pure encapsulations-my naturopath got me on these. Can't say I can tell a difference but vitamin b is always a good idea with nausea.·      Tried some Chinese herbal teas from the natural herb pharmacy that my acupuncturist prescribed but couldn't tell a difference.·      I've worked out consistently (3x a week, even if it's light) through this pregnancy which seems to help keep the hormones moving even though it's SOOOO hard at times.·      Tons of protein-this is huge. I've had to keep the odwalla-type protein drinks on hand. When all food sounds disgusting, these are huge for keeping me from getting too hungry (which also makes me sicker). I do the arbonne protein drink everytime I workout, but having something instantly ready in the fridge is super helpful.·      Drinking more water than I think I need and sleeping more than I think I need (sleeping pills necessary lately) does help.·      I tried diclegis, which is the new super safe anti-nausea drug. I don't think it helped, but it did make me super sleepy.·      Bentonite clay mixed in water at night-this helped a little bit as it sucks up all the nastiness in your digestion, including all the nauseating acid. Don't take it around the Time you're taking vitamins though.Lola has been super active in third trimester. She gets tons of hiccups, just like Avery did. With Avery, she also had many hiccups as a baby. Loves to stretch her legs way out in my side just like her siblings did.I loved the name Lola since college. I worked for an elderly lady named Lola throughout college, helping her with her household items and doing her shopping for her. She was sweet yet feisty and particular, refusing to lose her zest as she aged. Jacob didn't seem into the name Lola early in our marriage, so I moved on and didn't push it as an option when we had Avery.Jacobs grandmothers middle name was Lokinelola. When I was pregnant with Carter, I thought maybe we could use that as the middle name if he had been a girl.After we learned this time that we were having a girl, Jacob brought up Lola again as a first name option out of nowhere. I waited it out to see if he had real interest. We toyed with other names too like Alexis, and threw away our girl name we liked before we knew Carter was a boy (Kennedy) since it was way too presidential now. Avery instantly really liked Lola. After a month or so, we 'let Avery pick' the name and she chose Lola without hesitation. We decided on Lola Lokine since it's a remix of Jacobs grandmothers middle name. It also is very pretty, unique without being odd.34 weeks:    Moving like crazy
    Up throughout the night unless I take sleeping pill
    Toes/limbs stretching way far on both sides
    Seems to still be head up
    No nausea
    Super sore throughout entire torso
    Easy to nap every day As of 36 weeks, I was already dilated to a 2 and 20% effaced. At 38 weeks, I was at a 3 and 60% effaced. I had tons of contractions by then. Some even came with very light cramping and could be timed for 2+ hours at 5-20 minutes apart.

The story of Lola's arrival:
Lola's birth story really  started weeks before it actually happened.When I went in for my 26 week appointment, Dr. Bohmke said that I was already dilated 2 cm and 20% effaced. At that point, she said Lola "could arrive that night"...or she may not come for a couple weeks. Third babies can be quite unpredictable.After that appointment, I got pretty excited and anxious and purchased all the last items I thought I needed for her. I also packed my hospital bag and put it in my car. Jacob and I made plans to be ready for labor to start anytime.Contractions happened frequently from then on. On November 21st, Jacob and I were staying the night at the WAC hotel and I felt uncomfortable contractions that seemed to be in a pattern. I actually tracked them for over 2 hours, but they were roughly 5-20 minutes apart. At one point, I even got up and started getting ready for the hospital just in case. Jacob woke up at that point and whined about the lights being on, which was pretty entertaining. Eventually, though, I decided to go back to bed since they weren't progressing and nothing happened. Situations like this continued to happen for the next several weeks. I have lots of notes on my phone where I tracked contractions for a while. Lots of pre labor or early labor, but nothing that turned into true labor.On December 4th at 10 am, I went in to see my doctor just to have her strip my membranes in hopes of making labor coming soon. She told me at that point that I was dilated almost to 6 cm. She also then said she'd rather I walk around nearby for a while rather than go home, since I should be in labor anytime. She also had me get hooked up to the monitor for an NST in order to make sure Lola was doing good. They then tracked my contractions at 4-6 minutes apart consistently. Apparently I was in labor and hadn't even realized! I had been so uncomfortable for the weeks prior that I didn't recognize that labor seemed to have actually started. Dr. Bohmke told me I should skip the plan to walk around and head straight to triage.I had been texting updates to Jacob and then let him know that things were really happening. Mammy had been watching the kids while I went to my doctor appointment so I let her know she'd be with them for a while.Jacob had really hoped there would be some type of drama involved with Lola's arrival, just to make it interesting for the 3rd time around. A high speed rush to the hospital, maybe a cop trying to pull us over, possibly almost having the baby in the car-any of those options sounded good to him. I assured him there's enough drama for me with simply birthing a child. Ultimately, there was the most minimal amount of drama when it came to our arrival to the hospital. I actually drove myself there. On our way to triage, I also insisted we pause to grab a holiday drink and a cookie at Starbucks in the lobby. I didn't see any reason not to start things off with some cozy comforts.We got all set up in a room around 12 or so and walked around the hospital for an hour or so. We even visited our second cousin Mali Hawkins, who had just delivered her baby Rosie the day before. I carried on conversations with Mali, Rylan and Berta while experiencing regular contractions that were slightly painful but bearable. No one could believe I was walking around and seemed to be managing labor at that point. I tried to convince Jacob that this was just because I am super tough :)Mammy brought the kids to the hospital after Avery got out of school at 1:30. It was really fun to have them in the delivery room for a while and let them be a part of the experience. Still, things didn't seem to be progressing much, so we decided to have the doctor break my water. I knew that after my water broke with Carter is when things got much more painful very quickly. So, I opted to have the epidural put in right before she broke my water.
Hours later, things were still not really progressing. We expected Lola to fly out, but she was taking her sweet time. We decided to use a tiny bit of pitocin to get things moving. This helped me (slowly) dilated from 6 cm to 8 cm. At that time, Lola's head turned sideways, causing the labor to stall again. Dr. Bohmke had the nurses put me in the exaggerated sims position to move her back (same thing we did with Carter around this point of labor). Within 5-10 minutes, it felt as if my epidural had stopped working entirely. We had already kept it at a very light epidural, so I had been having pain with each contraction, but this was a whole other level of pain. For about a half hour or so, I experienced the worst pain of any of my pregnancies. I could hardly stand it, the pain was so excruciating.  Jacob was playing the Amy Grant Christmas album at this time, and I tried to mentally check out as much as possible. I asked the nurses to have Dr. Bohmke check my progress, desperately hoping the pain was at least being productive. When she checked me at that point, I was thrilled to hear that it was time to push.It took roughly 10-15 minutes and 3 contractions to push sweet Lola out. Midway through, I looked down and saw her thick, dark hair and broke down in sobs. This was unexpected, and also made it feel so much more real that I was about to meet my baby girl. When she came out, she gave sweet quieter cries for the first few seconds before giving us a good wail to let us know she had arrived. Jacob and I were overcome with joy at her arrival.After delivering her, it took a long while to vet my placenta out. Dr. Bohmke ended up having to scrape it out with her hand. Finally, all was done with the delivery and the family was able to come meet her. Carter and Avery came first, and were both completely adorable and so excited about their baby sister. Mammy, B. Bo, Grammy, Poppie, and Auntie Mimi were also there to meet her. 

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