Baby Ober

Sweet, sweet Sarah,

I can hardly believe you're already one month old!! Life has been a whirlwind between your birth and the holidays. This month has gone by SO quickly, yet I can hardly remember what life was like without you here! You are sweet as sweet can be! And by far our calmest baby so far. :) Your brother and sister are absolutely, positively IN LOVE with you. They ask to hug and kiss on you non-stop. Which is probably why you've gotten the nasty cold that they have had.

But sadly, your cold has actually turned into pneumonia. You sound so pathetic when you cough and wheeze. And then you look at mommy with sad eyes and your little lips quivering, as if to say, "Please help me feel better!" :( And as a mommy, that is the hardest thing for me to deal with. I wish I could take it all away and make you feel all better. But healing takes time. We've been giving you breathing treatments and antibiotics and hope you begin to feel better VERY soon!

You had been gaining weight very well, but since being sick, you've actually started losing weight. We'll find out how that changes next week when we go back for your one-month check up/follow-up. You are generally a happy baby with big, beautiful, blue eyes! I love, love, LOVE it when you smile in your sleep! And you do it ALL the time! :) We look forward to seeing you smile in response to us in the next few weeks!

We can't wait to watch you continue to grow and learn! Everyone says that you look JUST like your big brother. We'll see if that changes as you grow! You are such a blessing to us and SO beautiful. We love you, sweet baby girl!

Despite many different attempts at inducing ourselves naturally, my body just didn't respond to anything. We also had to make a difficult decision between trying to deliver normally or opting for a c-section, given Sarah's large size. Throughout the entire pregnancy, when I prayed to ask God what we should do, I kept hearing the same thing: "Trust Me." And that's just what we did when we went to the hospital Tuesday morning, December 6th, to be induced by my doctor.

Pretty much nothing went as I had hoped or planned, but everything ended up working out just fine and we ended up with a beautiful, healthy baby girl! I had decided ahead of time that I would like to have my water broken, but to hold off on the pitocin to see if my body would respond and go into labor more naturally than having the drugs. When I asked my doctor if that would be okay, she responded with a very emphatic, "No," then went on to say, "I'm here to induce you, so that's what I'm going to do." She completely disregarded my wishes and made me feel like I was about 10 years old. I clinched my teeth and held back the tears as she broke my water and began the pitocin drip. After breaking my water, without telling me, the doctor also screwed an internal fetal monitor into Sarah's scalp. I know now that this is a fairly common procedure, but one that I would have declined if given the option, as there are risks of infection to both baby and mother, as well as limited mobility for me throughout the labor.

While it was uncomfortable, I still managed to walk a few laps around the floor, which was able to help labor progress at a decent rate. When they began hooking me up to all of the machines, they also tested my blood since I had been diagnosed with mild gestational diabetes. I ate a large bowl of cereal just before heading to the hospital, per my doctor's suggestion. I knew that my blood sugars would be higher because of this, but also knew that my body regulates the sugars fairly quickly, and that the levels would be normal within a very short time. When they saw the high-ish results of the blood draw, they insisted that I get a shot of insulin. I have NEVER taken insulin and know with certainty that my body does NOT need it to regulate my blood sugars. They were simply higher than normal because of what I ate. Not a big deal. But they would not listen to me and gave me the insulin anyway. This nearly set me over the edge, but I still managed to fight back the tears and remained quite peaceful.

I got to walk around the halls a couple of times as my labor progressed. Within two and a half hours of my water breaking, the contractions were coming quite strongly, I had progressed from 2cm to 5cm, and I requested an epidural. As we were waiting for the epidural, I began shaking uncontrollably, sweating profusely, and felt very disoriented. The nurse checked my blood sugar level, and found that I was nearing hypoglycemic shock. Lovely. I wanted to yell, "I TOLD YOU SO!" But just asked repeatedly for something to help bring my sugars up again. I was given sugar water through the IV, which caused extreme pain in my arm because my veins are small and the solution was thick. I had to get FOUR different doses of this solution throughout the course of labor, as my blood sugars kept crashing.

Within about 20 minutes of getting the epidural, I began to feel it's effects slowly go away as I was experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort. They tried releasing more medicine 3 separate times, but nothing worked. So the anesthesiologist came back with a VERY strong dose of a different drug. Within minutes of receiving this dose, I could not feel ANYthing from my armpits down. It was a bit much and lead me to feel quite uncomfortable and nervous about being able to push when it was time. Within 2 hours of getting the first epidural, I was a complete 10cm. I was feeling a tiny bit of pressure with each contraction, but didn't necessarily feel the urge to push thanks to the heavy epidural. This ended up being a blessing in disguise, as we had to wait AN HOUR AND A HALF for the doctor to arrive so that I could begin pushing. During this time, my blood pressure kept dipping to very low levels (72/25), which was likely a side effect of the epidural. Those last few hours of labor were most unpleasant, as I was unable to feel anything below my chest, was shaking uncontrollably, and could not stop vomiting. It was not a pretty sight.

Once the doctor arrived and got ready, it was time to push. My body felt nothing. Literally...nothing. But I somehow ended up pushing the baby out within about 7 minutes. And likely due to the amount of time we waited while at 10cm, I endured VERY little tearing to the pelvic area. Praise God!! Sarah Elizabeth Ober was born at 2:43pm, weighing 9lbs, 13oz, and 22 inches long. It took her a little while to begin screaming, but once she did she sounded great! The doctor and nurses were amazed at her size...and then again at the size of the placenta. I have no idea how or why, but my body just makes big babies...in a fairly quick about of time! :) I am thankful that the labor and delivery went by quickly (6.5 hours from start to finish), because it was definitely a very unpleasant experience. But the prize (this sweet baby girl) is SO worth it!! :)