Lily's Birth Story

I have seen some blog posts that have been on a child's birth. I love the idea, so I decided to do it. I'm starting with Lily and will do Avery's one day next week!!!

Lillian Marie Hulsey was born on January 28, 2004 at 6:25 a.m. Here is how her journey to this world began...

I had a very clear idea of how I wanted to give birth (as do most first time mom's). I wanted NO Drugs, NO C-Section, as little medical intervention as possible. My birth was going to be ALL-NATURAL!!!! At around 33 weeks, I went to the doctor for one of those normal check-ups and discovered that Lily was completely breech. Her little bottom was sitting on my cervix. And her head was under one of my ribs (totally painful!!). So the doctor had me start doing these exercises that were designed to turn a breech baby. I did them faithfully for the next 4-5 weeks religiously (they were very uncomfortable!) but they did not work. Lily would not budge. So on January 27, the doc scheduled the C-Section for Thursday January 29. At around midnight, I went into labor, so what was going to be a nice relaxed scheduled C-Section, turned into an emergency C-Section. I was terrified!! I had my mind around not getting a GIANT shot in my back, so I was scared of the whole concept! For those of you who have had C-Sections, I'm sure you share my feelings that getting ready for the C-Section is a lot harder than the actual procedure. First, you have to get the IV (ouch!), then you get completely shaved (they do not want to see ANY hair [the regrowth is interesting]), then they move you to the Operating Room. The make you sit on the table in the very COLD room, and they say, "now try not to move while we are giving you this shot" Nothing like putting pressure on the mother who is scared to death of the whole spinal thing in the first place. So the first shots were just to numb the skin so that the mother of all shots wouldn't hurt as bad. But there is nothing that can describe the feeling of that needle rubbing against your backbone. Once the spinal was in they made me lay down (quickly while I still had some feeling) and they propped me up sideways with this wedge thing, put in the catheter and started rubbing the iodine all over my belly. They were all talking amongst themselves and I was like "I can feel that". I could feel them rubbing the iodine on, and I was scared they were starting without telling me. But they weren't. I was so glad when they let Adam come back in...just having him there helped ease my anxiety. So it seemed like within seconds they said "I can see her"...what a feeling "Finally my baby is here"! And then I heard "My Goodness...that is one BIG baby". And my doctor was like, "Ummm, Heather, I might have guessed the weight wrong (her guess was 8 pounds max)", and then I heard my precious little girl start crying!!!! What an incredible feeling, the flood of emotions is so totally unexplainable!!! I was laughing and crying at the same time!! They put her over the little barrier thing and I saw her for the first time. She was a chubby, beautiful baby, and I was instantly in love!!! They cleaned her up, and then let me hold her for a few minutes and took her (and Adam) off to the nursery!!! They put a little bit of something in my IV, and slept for the next 45 minutes or so until they were done. I was still partially awake when they poked their heads in to say that she weighed 9lbs 13 ozs and she was 19 inches long. I smiled and went to sleep. Apparently they had some problems while I was sleeping. They took her blood sugar, and it was 33 (norm for a baby is around 45), so they gave her some sugar water, and took it again right when I was getting out of surgery and into recovery. So I was in recovery holding my new baby, nursing her for the first time, and a nurse comes in and rips her off my breast and says, "I have to take her". Talk about scaring me. So the nurse that was in there taking care of me went to go and see what the deal was. Her blood sugar had dropped to 13, very very low. So they were putting an IV in her head, and they were giving her a certain type of high calorie formula to bring her blood sugar up. I was upset about them giving her formula (I was not wanting her to have ANY formula) but it was going to be the best fastest way to get her blood sugar back up. So I just made sure that they didn't give her a bottle nipple to avoid any nipple confusion. They just gave it to her in a medicine cup...it was kinda cute to watch her drink it. She had the IV for the first 24 hours. And because they were forcing that formula down her throat she wasn't hungry so she wouldn't nurse. That night was horrible. I cried and cried cause I couldn't get her to latch on. I was already upset that I didn't have the birth experience that I wanted and my hopes of strictly breastfeeding were being squashed before my eyes. But thankfully, once her blood sugar went back up to normal, and I was able to stop giving her that formula...she started nursing like a pro!!! We went home on Friday, January 30. The trip home was awful. I was sore, the car was stuffed with flowers, and stuffed toys, and such like...and we had a brand new baby in the car!! We had to stop at the pharmacy to pick up my pain medicine before going home. Unfortunately, the pharmacy did not have my meds ready. So, Lily and I were stuck in the car for about 20 minutes while Adam was in the pharmacy getting my medicine. She started crying, and there was no way for me to get to her without having to move a whole lot of stuff...so I moved it and sat with her and we both cried.

I could continue with this story, but I think I will end it here. I love my daughter, and no matter how awful getting her here was, I wouldn't trade it for a thing.

Adam wore this outfit home from the hospital when he was born. Lily's little face was so chubby that we couldn't button the top button on any of her sleepers for the first few weeks of her life. I love pictures like this!! They just look so comfortable.
Lily was jaundice. Thankfully it wasn't bad enough to have to be under a light. I was ready to go home, and once we got there, I wanted to stay.

Mommy and Lily!! I was so in love with my beautiful baby!! I still am!!!!!!

Lily had an hemangioma under her left nostril. Because of where it was and the fact that hemangiomas can grow quickly we had to keep a close eye on it for the first year. For those of you who don't know, hemangiomas are considered benign tumors. They are a collection of blood vessels, and like I said they can grow quickly and cover an area!! It was a concern that it might grow into her nose and cut off air supply. But it never got worse than this, and now you can hardly even see it. I am VERY glad that it is gone.

Lily slept for the first 3 months of her life. Even when she was a newborn she would sleep for 6-8 hours straight, not even waking up to eat or get a clean diaper. I was worried about her sleeping so much!! She got

where she would hardly eat, and she was losing weight (thankfully she had some extra to lose!). So, afte a visit to the doctor, we had to start waking her up every 4 hours to eat. Waking her up was impossible!! We would jostle her, then tickle, then undress her and wipe her with a wet washcloth...none of this worked!!! So we would have to put her in a warm tub and that would eventually wake her up, though sometimes even that wouldn't work. She still sleeps hard like that. Once she gets to sleep, nothing will wake her up!!! I have to say that I am glad about that. When Avery was tiny he would scream, ALOT, and she never woke up!! She gets that from her Daddy. Unfortunately, I do not sleep that well, at all!!!

"Ahh, I can FINALLY stretch out. I am so Comfy!!!!!!"

Look at that cubby face!!! What a cutie!!!

They had to tie her arm down. She kept trying to rip out her IV. I have to say that she is still VERY, VERY bull headed. I guess in the long run that will be a good thing, but I dread the teenage years!!!!

Happy Family!!!!!

I forgot to put in here that Lily had a complete knot in her cord. Hence why she was breech and wouldn't move (it didn't help that she weighed almost 10 pounds and had NO room to move). The doctor said that out of the hundreds of babies she had delivered this was only the 3rd or 4th time she had seen this. If Lily had moved it would have pulled the knot, and cut off her oxygen and she would have died. The whole thing is truly a mircle!! It is really amazing that God knew what was best, and even though a C-Section was the last thing I wanted, it turned out to be the best thing I've ever gone through - it brought my baby to me safe and sound!!!!