Lorelei’s Birth Story

Just so I can remember the details, here’s Lorelei’s birth story…
(Warning LONG post below!)

The birth of a child, is always a miraculous event, and even with the fourth child it was still an amazing special event.

From the beginning, this pregnancy was so different from our others, and you may recall, that for awhile, I was put on take it easy ‘bed rest’, or you’re going on full bed rest orders from my doctor. So once I made it to our November 5th deadline, I was anxious for our little girl to come. Every day after the 5th, I began my morning with the thought, maybe I will meet our daughter today…and at the end of the day, I had the thought, maybe we will meet our baby girl tonight…then I would wake up in the morning, and begin again.

Of course, I am grateful that she was able to stay in as long as possible, to grow and be as healthy and big as she could! In the few weeks leading up to Lorelei’s birth there were days full of contractions, and nights of me being awoken by strong contractions, that would get stronger and closer together, then just suddenly stop.

So on Saturday afternoon about 3:45, my contractions started suddenly and were pretty strong and consistently about 6 minutes apart. With them continuing for over two hours I wondered when we should head to the hospital (and kind of just waited wondering if they were going to stop like all the others!). Now, with the previous 3 pregnancies my water had broken, and so I knew when it was time to go to the hospital. So with just the contractions, and no water breaking, I was unsure of when it was time to go! 🙂

We called my mom to give her a heads up, so she could come down and watch the other kids. We weren’t sure, but we hoped we’d be having a baby soon! She arrived a little under an hour later, and we were trying to put the kids to bed. They were pretty wound up, and she had her work cut out for her! Toph had been diligently taking notes on my contractions, and they were getting closer together, so we decided to head out, Toph carried our things out to the car, and off we drove.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was a pretty full house. (There was a big storm, and apparently due to the big barometric pressure changes, there were lots of ladies ready to give birth at the hospital!) They hooked me up to the machines, but we weren’t sure if I was going to stay or not. As soon as we were hooked up, the contractions almost completely stopped. I was pretty sure they were going to send me home! 🙂 But we again began to walk the halls, and boy did the contractions ever pick up as we walked — they were coming much closer together, and getting strong, strong, strong! Christopher mentioned that for him, this was one of his favorite parts, walking the halls, and finalizing the babies names. For me, the contractions are not so fun, but I do enjoy the anticipation and excitement. In the halls, we finalized Lorelei’s name. And with the contractions getting stronger, they checked us into the hospital…(Phew!)

Of course our Doctor was gone (I have delivered 3 babies with this doctors practice, but our actual doctor has yet to deliver any of our babies! It’s always been the ‘on call doctor’!) and so the Doctor who was on call, broke my water. And shortly thereafter the contractions got closer together and longer and longer.

As soon as my water broke at about 8:00 PM, I again began to doubt (as I always do) my choice of natural childbirth. I had been up since 4:00 that morning with contractions, and it had been a busy day, my neighborhood had thrown a baby shower for me, I’d gone shopping and running lots of errands, and it had just been a busy, busy day chasing 3 children. I was already pretty tired, and since this pregnancy had been so different than the others, I was afraid I was going to be in labor for many hours. So I decided that I might like to try an epideral. But as soon as I’d made the decision, I was informed that it was too late… Also, the anesthesiologist had left the building. They said I could try a spinal block, which is a shot into your spine, that would be a temporary pain relief. I thought that would be a good choice, so they paged the anesthesiologist, and he came and gave me the shot. But I must admit that for me, it didn’t work! They kept saying it should kick in about 5 minutes, then about 15 more minutes, then by 20 minutes. But there was not really any relief from the pain! After he left I heard one of the nurses say to the other nurse, ‘I think he must have missed, cause there is no way she is feeling that medicine!’ Honestly, it felt the same as my other children’s births (which were without medication!)! About an hour after her birth, my legs did start to feel a little numb, so maybe I just take extra long for the medication to kick in? Who knows!

Christopher was by my side the entire time. By the fourth child, we’d gotten into a pretty good groove, what works for us for childbirth. He’s an amazingly supportive man, who held my hand, told me when the contractions were on there way down, helped me breath, fed me ice-chips and gave just little bits of encouragement. We’ve been very lucky to be together for all 4 our children’s births. And it’s an amazing thing to welcome a little baby together. It truely is a sacred event.

So a little under 2 hours after breaking my water, Lorelei made her appearance, about 10:00 PM. I only did big pushing for about 15 minutes, and we were so surprised by her thick dark hair and darling chubby cheeks. She arrived even more beautiful than we could have imagined.

Baby Girls Arrival from Emily Phillips on Vimeo.

What a blessing she already is in all of our lives!