We have some very exciting news to share… we had a baby girl last Wednesday! Her name is Lucy-Rae Nicole and she was born May 30th at 12:00pm, 7 lbs, 3 oz.
On Wednesday morning I woke up with a pain in my lower abdomen and a fever. It didn’t feel like contractions because the pain was constant. We were pretty scared because we didn’t know what was happening and I hadn’t felt the baby move like I normally do in the morning. The pain continued to get worse over the next hour so we called our midwife.
We met her at the hospital so we could see how the baby was doing. By the time we got to the hospital I was in so much pain that I could barely talk, move or open my eyes. I used the breathing exercises we learned from Rhonda to try and cope! Chris was very good at keeping me hydrated and giving me lots of encouragement! I was 2 cm dilated. When they hooked me up to the fetal monitor it was such a relief to hear the baby’s heartbeat! But her heartbeat was too high, and remained that way for the next hour. It was fluctuating between 168 – 178. We had one scare when the heartbeat suddenly dropped to 70. Because of this, and the fact that I had a fever, my care had to be transferred from our midwife, Nicola, to the obstetrician. They suspected there was an infection, and knew that the baby was in distress. The obstetrician told us without hesitation that she was going to have to do a Cesarean section right away.
When the obstetrician left, Nicola told me she would try to push the envelope if she could to prevent the Cesarean, but she agreed with the obstetrician. She explained why inducing was too dangerous an option, and just began comforting Chris and I in knowing we would have to surrender to the Cesarean. She was so amazing and stayed with us the entire time. During the operation Chris was incredible. He said the sweetest things a husband could possibly say to his wife! All in all it was a roller coaster of emotions, but like Rhonda always told us, the end goal is a healthy mom and healthy baby – and we achieved that! We feel so blessed and are grateful to God for bringing her safely into this world. Lucy-Rae has been amazing at breastfeeding! She latched on right away and we have been doing great ever since. We seriously fall in love with her more and more every day!
Nicola and the doctors are still baffled by what happened because they were expecting to discover the cause of my pain & fever, and Lucy-Rae’s elevated heart rate after the Cesarean. But they couldn’t find anything wrong except that I had very little amniotic fluid. Nicola even consulted with the senior midwives at her clinic that have 100 years experience between them, and no one could pinpoint what could have been the cause. So it remains a mystery!
Chris, Jenna and Lucy-Rae
