Felicity Rose

I fear I’ve already waited too long to accurately recall the birth story of Miss Felicity Rose. I have a horrible memory, but I will do my best.

I have big babies. Bernadette was 9 lb 4 oz 1 week early. Clare was 8 lb 11 oz 1 1/2 weeks early. Leading up to my due date with this one, my doctor had talked us into inducing. However, every appointment I had I wasn’t favorable so we were never able to set a date. Finally on Wednesday, August 18th, I woke up feeling nauseous and having random contractions. By lunch time, much to my disappointment, they had stopped.

Thursday morning began with the same yucky feelings and random contractions. It was my due date and we had a doctors appt. late morning. By the time I picked up my husband from work for our appointment my contractions were about 10 minutes or so apart, but not painful.

When the doctor checked me he said that I was dilated to about 5 cm and very stretchy. In fact, Felicity’s head was just bouncing around. The nurse called the hospital and they said to wait an hour or so then go ahead and come in.

We were so excited. We started making arrangements for the big girls and headed home to finish packing our hospital bag and eat a quick lunch.

By the time we got home, I couldn’t eat. The contractions started to be strong enough that I had to stop what I was doing and breathe it out until it was over. As soon as Jeremy’s cousin came to stay with the girls, we were off to the hospital.

Me, 40 weeks to the day. HUGE! No wonder people kept asking if I was having twins!

We got all settled in a room at about 2:00. They started me on fluids right away so I could get an epidural. The contractions were getting more painful. My doctor broke my water at 2:45 and noticed I was dilated to 7 or so. When my water broke, the doctor noticed meconium mixed in with the fluid. When I heard that, I was concerned because I always heard that that was bad. My doctor, thankfully, didn’t make a big deal of it at all, so I didn’t think about it too much. Having my water broke lessened the contraction pain, but I still opted for the epidural.

The anesthesiologist came at 3. As I was sitting up, leaning over the table as the doctor prepared to give me the epidural, I suddenly felt the need to push. I told my nurse this and the anesthesiologist heard and asked if I wanted him to go ahead and do the epidural or not. I was like, “uh…uh…” (not thinking clearly) and he decided to go ahead and do it so I could get some good from it.

When he was done, my doctor checked me again and I was dilated to 9, but the baby was facing sideways. So, the nurse was instructed to position me and do what ever she could do to get the baby to turn. I was first laid on my left side for about an hour. They added pitocin to my IV to help the baby get straightened out.

After about an hour and a half, my left leg was completely numb, so I asked if I could be rolled over to my other side. My husband and my nurse helped to roll me over. Once rolled over, I began to feel very very uncomfortable. It is hard to describe how it felt. I was mostly numb, but I felt a kind of panicky uncomfortable. I buzzed for my nurse to come back and told her how uncomfortable I was.

She checked me and said, “The head is right there, we are ready to go!” Everyone (doctor, nurses) came in and prepared for the birth. I was still mostly numb, so it took me a bit to realize when I the contractions were coming and when I needed to push. I believe on the 4th push, her head came out and on the 5th, she was born. She was born at 6:06 pm after a 5 hour labor.

That’s one big baby! Pretty sure she came out a month old…

The nurses sucked out her lungs and weighed her. 10 lb 1 oz and 21.5 in long I didn’t tear or anything, so I maintain that I was born to have babies. She was born absolutely beautiful and looking so much like her sisters.

My first time holding my third baby girl. Felicity Rose, I love you so much!

My doctor worked awhile trying to get the placenta out. He ended up having to manually extract it which he had only done one other time before and the mom ended up with an infection, so he took extra precautions and I was on antibiotics for a week. Thankfully, I didn’t get an infection.

First family picture. The girls are in love with their new sister.

Recovery went very well. We went home Friday evening, just over 24 hours after birth. On Monday morning, we took her in to the doctor’s office for a check-up. The doctor told us that when they took the placenta to the lab, it had an infection on it which probably caused Felicity some stress in the womb, hence the meconium.

Cheeks!

We had noticed that morning that she was a little yellow which completely worried us as our other daughters both were put on phototherapy at home and Clare was put back in the hospital to get her numbers down. They drew her blood and called that night with results. Her numbers had gone up since she was in the hospital and they wanted to check it again the next day. The second time, it was still up, so they checked it a third time before we got the “all clear”. Thank God! We were so grateful to have a child who did not need the bililights.

Felicity is now 6 weeks old. She is a wonderful baby! She sleeps 8 hours or so at night, is a great nurser and the only allergies she has is to carrots. We are unbelievably grateful that God gave us such an easy baby this time around. After the difficulties with Clare’s intolerances and then the miscarriage we had last year, she is such a blessing.