And boy did she make a dramatic entrance into this world! Addilyn Grace was born on 3-13-11 and she is healthy and B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. Time of birth was 7:52 pm, she weighed in at 6 lbs 2 oz and measured 18 ½ inches long. What a day it was, filled with many emotions and a lot of surprises. I will try to recount the day as best I can so you can get a good idea of the day we will never forget and the day that made us a family of 3.
I woke up Sunday morning around 8:30 to an empty bed, no Lacy and no dogs, which was unusual. When I got out of bed I found Lacy in the fetal position on the living room couch with quite a bit of back pain. She had been up for a few hours and did not sleep well at all. She had called her doctor and was convinced this was just a part of the last few days of pregnancy. There simply was no pain or contractions in her stomach area. We tried Ice, heat, and Biofreeze on her back to help alleviate some of the pain and it just wasn’t working. I decided to go onto church and let her try and get some rest when on my way out the door she said, “It isn’t going to be long”. Little did she know how right she really was.
I went to church with cell phone in hand and never really could pay attention to the sermon. I kept looking down at my phone looking for that green light to start flashing, but it never did. After church Lacy was determined to get out of the house instead of lie around all day in pain, so I picked her up to go out to lunch. We met some friends at The Ridges for the Sunday brunch and buffet and Lacy seemed to be doing fine. I always thought I had a high tolerance for pain, but she really has a high tolerance for pain.
This part is actually funny and very fitting. The 4 of us sat down at the table and talked for a few minutes. Some other friends came by to talk and everyone would ask Lacy, “when is the baby due?” Lacy would answer “any day now”, which always surprised people because of how small she was. Part of the reason she was so small was she ate healthy and exercised throughout her pregnancy, but also because Addie was very low and positioned more towards the back of her torso, hence the back pain. When we decided to get up and go through the buffet line things got interesting. I had been through the line and was at the omelette bar having an omelette made when I looked back at the beginning of the line to see Lacy fixing a salad. I just happened to keep my attention on her when I saw the look on her face I will never forget. She quickly set her plate full of salad back on top of the stack of clean plates and made a mad dash for the restroom. Our friend Whitney said, “I think your wife’s water just broke”, and I thought, “I think she just needs to go the bathroom”, but I followed her and quickly broke into the women’s bathroom and yep, Lacy’s water broke while standing in the buffet line.
I got one bite of my biscuits and gravy and we were out the door heading home. Lacy called her doctor and explained what had happened and she advised us to take our time, get everything together and that she would let the hospital know we would be on our way. We got home in a little bit of shock I think, but Lacy cleaned and packed up, we packed the car, called family, charged the camera and video camera etc. We then sat there and did what everyone does when their water breaks, ate sandwiches and took pictures. Lacy still felt ok and she wasn’t having contractions in her stomach area at this point either. We then prayed together and headed to the hospital.
 |
| Right before we left for the hospital.... All smiles. |
When we got to the hospital they were expecting us. To our surprise there were no other people in the birthing center, so everything was calm and Lacy received immediate attention. They put us in a small room and made sure Lacy’s water did in fact break and checked to see how far along she had progressed. I could have showed them Lacy’s jeans she was wearing to prove that her water had broken, but I suspect they still would have wanted to check for themselves. At this point Lacy was still only 2 cm dilated, which she had been for almost 3 weeks now. They went ahead and admitted her, put us in a room and told us the doctor would see us shortly.
 |
| Looks like we are going to be here awhile.... |
I would say it was probably 2:30-3:00 in the afternoon at this point. Shortly thereafter family started to show up to see how things were going, but they weren’t going at all. The doctor called in and had the nurses start Lacy on Pitocin in addition to the fluids she was already receiving. They were hoping this would help the process of dilation and effacement, and I think it did slowly but surely. Lacy’s contractions (still predominately in her back) began to get a little more frequent and slightly more painful, so we decided it was probably best to go ahead and get her epidural.
The epidural slowly took effect and Lacy was unaware to the contractions going on with her body. At 7:00 the doctor came in and decided to check Lacy to see if she had progressed any with the help of the Pitocin, and she was still only 3 cm dilated. I remember the doctor saying, “Usually we like to see you progress at about a cm an hour, but when you get to 4-5 cm it could go faster”. So here I am thinking, “This is going to be a l o n g night”. The doctor said she would be back at 8:15 to check her again to see if there was any more progression. All the family asked the doctor if it was ok to leave and get a quick dinner, and the doctor told them they had “plenty” of time and not to worry. So everyone besides Lacy’s sister in law Stacie left to eat. Stacie knew the doctor and was out in the hall talking to her while Lacy and I turned the lights off in the room and decided to relax and rest up for the night ahead. Stacie came back in the room and we were chit chatting when all of a sudden we were caught off guard when the doctor came swiftly into the room with a nurse on her heels.
Just a few minutes before this both Lacy and I were exhausted in the dark. Lacy’s sister Susan had sent me a text message at 7:49 asking me if I wanted any food from Panera, I quickly responded “no thanks”. All of this was at 7:49 (according to my phone) and everything was quiet and normal in the hospital room. If you were reading carefully you know that the time of birth was 7:52, so A LOT happened in such a short period of time.
So the doctor came in and wanted to check the baby’s heart monitor that was on Lacy’s belly. Apparently she saw something on the nursing station’s monitor and wanted to make sure the monitor was positioned correctly. Addie’s heart rate had dropped and little did we know, but she was ready to make her entrance into this world all by herself. When the doctor lifted the sheet up and looked down all I remember her saying was something along the lines of, “Get the table set up, get the team in here, Lacy we’ve got to do this now, I need you to go ahead and push one good time for me.” So Lacy went from a semi-conscious sleep state to pushing in a matter of seconds.
Holy cow what was going on? Did I fall asleep and dream this was happening? Stacie and I quickly tried to call family but there was no time, they would never make it in time. Addie was in distress and wanted out. The medical staff really had no time to set anything up and Lacy was in as much shock as I was. Lacy pushed 4-5 good times and about a minute to minute and half later our daughter had made her dramatic entrance into this world. Lacy was AWESOME, this was the part of the whole process that had scared her the most, and she had just made it look like child’s play. I think this was God’s way of keeping her from getting anxiety because one minute she was relaxed and almost asleep, and the next minute she was looking at her daughter across the room. There was really no time to freak out. I remember one thing Lacy said after they told her to take a deep breath, “Do you want me to keep pushing?” The truth is, Lacy never did push and then take a break and then push, and then take a break. It was push, push, push, push, and now you can take a break because it’s all over. Lacy was in disbelief, that wasn’t bad at all, she said “That’s it?”
They had to work on Addie for a few minutes because she was in a state of shock, it just isn’t natural to be born that quickly. This is when my first Daddy instincts kicked in because I saw them working on her and immediately wanted to freak out. I tried to stay calm but Lacy could see it in on my face. I was assured everything was fine when I went over to where they were working on her, and shortly thereafter everything was normal again. It was then, probably 5 minutes after the birth that the family started showing up in disbelief.
