Amelia's Birth Story

I wrote the last blog entry the day before little Mia was born. God did have the right time for our baby to be born. The timing of when she would arrive seemed so important to me then, but now it really isn't a big deal at all!

Amelia Kelly arrived Sunday, July 26th at 12:15pm at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. She was 7 lbs. 7 oz. and 20.5 inches long. I received an epidural when I was about 5 cm so labor and delivery went quite smoothly.

Since I was experiencing pretty strong Braxton Hicks contractions, I thought for sure the baby was coming early. Nope! So when the baby's due date past, I was telling myself and others that I'm not going to guess anymore - I don't know when the baby's coming! Well, the early morning of the 26th, at around midnight, I started feeling contractions that felt different from my strong Braxton Hicks contractions. I told Dave that I was feeling some contractions but I guess that wasn't the first time I said it so he dozed off. I woke him up at about 1:30am because the contractions were becoming more regular. I nudged him and said, "Dave, baby's coming." Dave always gets startled when I wake him up and sometimes has a look of panic on his face. I'm pretty sure he did this time too. So now Dave was up and was recording my contractions on his iPod with the iContractions application. It was really helpful!

We both felt like we needed to take care of some things before we went to the hospital. So for the next 2 hours we were both cleaning around the house and packing things up for the hospital. Contractions were now getting stronger but I was still up and moving around. I called mom at around 2:30am to come watch Lilly while we went to the hospital and she arrived at about 4:00am. Lilly was sound asleep so we snuck out and made it to the hospital by 4:30am.

My contractions were pretty strong but manageable - I didn't feel like I needed the epidural immediately. So I got checked into Triage and the resident there said I was 3cm dialated. She said I probably won't get sent home because this is my 2nd child but she had to check with the doc in charge. No! We don't want to get sent home! I got sent home when I was in labor with Lilly and only 3 cm. Thankfully, we didn't get sent home and I progressed well, not too quickly, not too slowly.

Well the rest of the labor story was pretty uneventful. I got the epidural and felt very relaxed. Since it was Sunday morning, Dave and I kept thinking about what was happening at church - like oh, service just started, they're probably still singing now, and Norm's probably preaching right now. Dave told Larry he'd call him after the baby arrived.

The nursing staff was really good. They took excellent care of us. The nurse told me I was having contractions less than a minute apart. I couldn't imagine feeling contractions so close together without much time to regroup in between. Once again, I was thankful for my epidural! I was 10 cm and ready to push! The nurse told me to try pushing. So I pushed but then she told me to stop because the baby's head was starting to come out! She called for the doctor immediately. He came and I pushed again. Both times I was pushing as hard as I could because that's just what I thought I was supposed to do! :) Well I pushed and the baby just slid out! The doctor even looked surprised when she slid out and plopped Mia right onto my chest. The doctor told me that usually with the second baby, you push for 1/2 the time as you did with the first. He was right! I pushed for about 20 minutes with Lilly and 10 minutes with Mia.

Dave likes to retell the story of when he saw Lilly's face for the first time. This time around, with Mia, it all happened so quickly that he doesn't have much of a story to tell about what Mia looked like when she first came out. Haha Instead, Dave's been telling the story of what happened to him when Mia came out. She slid out and he unexpectedly burst into tears! He was so weepy that he decided not to cut the umbilical cord. Well and he was holding the video camera to capture baby's first moments out in an appropriate video-recording place. He captured some great footage! We can see from early on that Mia is so sweet. She was cooing and making sweet sounds from the moment she was born. All the nurses thought it was so sweet too.

Well that's pretty much the birth story. This is really more for our records. I really just wanted to get it up on the blog as soon as possible because it's already been 2 months! Mia is a sweet, healthy little girl ... even though she gets fussy sometimes and very demanding because she's bothered by her acid reflux. We're hoping the recent switch from Zantac to Prevacid will help sooth her discomfort. We love our little Mia!

Lilly says she loves her too. She likes to say all the same things that we say to baby, like "It's okay baby", "We're almost home baby!", "Baby so cute!!!" Before Mia was born, Dave and I had a hard time envisioning Lilly as an older sister, but now it's so clear that she's the nurturing big sister. Lilly likes to help out when she can, like throw diapers away, put the paci back in baby's mouth, put the button on baby's swing so her toys will go around, and give the swing a little push (except Lilly gives a big push and says, "Look mommy! Baby sister goes so high!"). Lilly's doing amazingly well with the adjustment to having a new baby. We tell Lilly that baby loves her so much. Then Lilly will tell us, "I love baby and baby loves me so much!" We love our two little girls ... there's just a lot of love going around.

My emotional and physical state after delivery is also amazingly good. God is so good and gracious. I was surprisingly calm and chill about everything when we got home from the hospital. Dave noticed too. He would be stressing about one thing and I'd just say, "It's okay!" Truly an evidence of grace! I was not quite as relaxed the first time around. :P

Juggling 2 kids, 2 months after Mia's birth is not easy. It's true that the 2nd kid does not just mean double the work. The 2nd kid brings exponentially more work. Physically, my body wants more rest/sleep but I can't rest/sleep when the baby naps because I'm caring for a toddler too. I can tell that Lilly misses having mommy one-on-one time, but she's been enjoying more of her daddy one-on-one time now! But when I'm home with the 2 kids, I've learned to let one cry if I need to tend to the other one. They'll survive! And by the grace of God, I will too.

* No time to post pictures on the blog. Crying baby on my lap. Check Flickr for picture updates!