Lilyana's Birth Story

  I started this post back almost a year ago but never completed it.  Since today was Lily's first birthday, I thought it was fitting to complete her birth story and post it:

11/24/2012:  We needed to get the the hospital by 7am, the c-section was scheduled for 9am.  But it was black Friday weekend and due to the impending arrival of our 4th(!) child we knew we were going to need to (within the next year) do some room shuffling and we need to invest in some bunk beds.  Kmart had a great sale on bunk beds but they didn't go on sale until Saturday morning. So......I persuaded my hubby to get up at 5:30am, we ran to Kmart, got the bunk beds, ran home dropped them off and made it to the hospital by 7:10am.  The lady that checked us out at Kmart asked when I was due and I told her I was headed to the hospital right after paying for my bunk beds.  She couldn't believe it and laughed and laughed.  It made for a great story at the hospital too.

At the hospital I started to get prepped for surgery.  The anesthesiologist came in and talked to me about whether I wanted to do an epidural or a spinal.  I previously had done spinals but this time he recommended the epidural.  With the spinal there is a time issue, once the medication wears off, you can't add more so if by chance they weren't done, I would have to go under general anesthesia.  So I opted for the epidural.  Getting it put in wasn't fun, I about passed out, but once it was in, I was ok.  So they wheeled me into surgery (funny sidebar, they took me into the wrong surgical suite first, it was set up for a twin delivery later that morning, I was so happy to not be in that room having twins- been there, done that!).  Then they got all set up and numbed me up, made sure I couldn't feel anything (that part is VERY important to me) and had Tory come in.  He was dressed in scrubs and had a mask on, he fit right in.  A few minutes later my doctor said "she's a big baby" and in my head I was thinking 8 lbs, then a minute or two later they pulled Lilyana out and she was big!  We all waited for them to call out the weight and Dr. Bachman was right, Lily weighed 9 lbs 14 oz.

The rest of the c-section was not so fun, they eventually gave me some medication to help me 'relax' or in other words, I don't really remember a lot of the rest of the operation for which I am grateful!  They were a little worried about her blood sugar at first but I knew she was fine.  She has been a great eater from the get-go.

I sent Tory home that first night because I know he is never really comfortable in hospitals and sleeping there is even less pleasant than being awake there.  I also wanted him to have a good nights' sleep since I would be recovering from major surgery.  Well as luck would have it Penelope was sick in the night and Tory ended up being up a lot of the night.  The other kids followed in sickness so none of them were able to come visit me in the hospital.  Its a little sad, since Oliver was born in the midst of the swine flu scare, no siblings were allowed to come visit their moms and new babies.  Then since they all got sick when Lily was born, they missed their chance with her.  So I'll never have my kids come to the hospital to meet their new sibling.  I guess there are worse things.

I stayed in the hospital until Tuesday and then headed home.  It was naptime when I got home so Lily and I headed upstairs to take a nap as well.  But I couldn't sleep and then Oliver poked his head around the corner.  I told him to come meet his little sister.  He came over and started to climb up on the bed.  I instinctively leaned over started to help him up on the bed, big mistake!  It seriously hurt my incision.  Oliver wasn't all that impressed with Lily and asked if he could go downstairs.  Penelope was scared of Lily at first but warmed quickly to her.  Parker has been such a good big brother from the get-go.  He just loves her, its been so fun to watch.  They all love to hold her and think its so fun to get her to smile, laugh, etc.

I'm so grateful my little sister could come help out when Lily was born.  One of my biggest stresses leading up to her birth was planning for care of my other children while giving birth.  But Dantzel really came through for me, she flew all the way from North Carolina and totally pitched in and watched our kids and helped u s out for 10 days or so.  I'm so grateful for family.

Lily has been an amazing edition to our family.  I love how she has just completed our family and makes all of us happier.  I can't believe year one is done but am looking forward to watching her grow up in our family!