Lily Is Here!

Yesterday my beautiful daughter Lily Pearl was born via caesarean at 11:47 am. Oddly enough, I was born one day following (today!) at 8:47 am, also via caesarean! Happy birthday to us and everyone else in June!

We are so excited to welcome her to our family! However, we will have to wait a little while to take her home as she was born with a saccrococcygeal teratoma which looks like it will require surgery to remove. She's in the NICU for now, and is sedated so that she doesn't hurt herself by flailing too much - apparently she makes very vigorous movements otherwise!

I am sad that I can't hold her or nurse her yet, but am thankful for the technology that is available to help and most of all for the God who has brought her this far and will see her (and us) through the rest of this process. Pumping is going well so far - it's weird to see the small amounts of colostrum in the bottle, but every little bit will help! I was just surprised I was able to get any so soon - another example of God's excellent handiwork! The human body is truly amazing.

Well, I should probably go back to sleep for a while. All of the strange noises (leg cuffs, etc.) aren't really helping, but I need to rest and recover quickly! :) I've already been able to walk around some, which is crazy to me as I remember how it took me 24 hours to do that last time! Again, God at work, and the strong motivation of getting to go see our daughter!

Looking forward to posting some good news soon. Until then please keep Lily in prayer, and may you and yours be blessed!

First haircut!

That's right folks, the curls are gone! (Still missing them... the new 'do makes him look so much older!)

Before

 

After

In other news: I have my first midwife appointment this week. I'm looking forward to it, but am somewhat nervous  because I am 20 weeks along and here I am seeing someone new! I finally decided to make the switch after reading as much as I could about VBAC and birth in general. I really enjoyed the book Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. The whole second section of the book talks about what the body goes through during labor and birth, as well as the effects of C-sections and the reasons why (in most cases) they probably wouldn't be necessary if the medical community embraced birth as a natural process that shouldn't be hurried or forced. I wish I had read this before my first birth, but am looking forward to putting this new mindset into practice this time around! And I look forward to having support for my choice to try for VBAC! :)

Apparently that was a bad idea...

I just watched a bunch of birthing videos on BabyCenter and I'm kind of FREAKING OUT!!!

I knew I didn't want an epidural, but now I realllllllllly don't want one. Needles freak me out and that needle is giant and they put it in your back!!!!! The C-section was also crazy. No wonder it's so painful and takes so long to recover from. I have to give big props to my mom for having three kids that way and living to talk about it. Yikes!

The best video I saw was the water birth. I don't think they offer that at the hospital where I'm going to deliver but I think they do have Jacuzzi tubs so hopefully I can relax. I also liked seeing some of the relaxation techniques (moving around, using an exercise ball, having the hubby help with massaging) that I think (hope!) will be helpful when I get to that point. I'm going to go see if they offer any classes like that besides the Bradley class. If not, we're taking that one!