1 month old!

Lily's Birth Story

Lily Katherine Hale

Born: October 18, 2013

9:07pm

7pounds, 18 inches

Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple, TX

Friday, October 18^th

41 weeks and one day pregnant. We had heard three due dates from medical professionals: October 7, 9, and 10^th. I had chosen to wait for her to come on her own rather than having a medical induction. It was so hard, but SO worth it to let her come on God’s timing and not mine. At 2:30am I woke up feeling stronger contractions and knew today was Lily’s birthday! I knew it would be a while before we would try to go to the hospital, though since the contractions were not extremely strong, long, or close together. Sean teaches one choir class at Salado High School, and is off at Salado Methodist Church on Fridays so he went to go teach from about 7:30am-9am. I enjoyed lying on the couch watching the Project Runway Season Finale where Dom won!

Sean came home, changed clothes, and we went on a walk. We walked our usual route- DeGrummond. We saw deer and enjoyed the beautiful weather. When we got about half a mile away (to the pond) I needed to turn around and go back because I was feeling some more intense contractions. YAY! We walked slowly back to the house enjoying talking to each other about becoming a family. When we got home I sent Sean to Brookshire Brothers (across the street) to go get stuff for BLT’s. I thought we could have those for dinner that night. When he got home from the store I told him we should make them for lunch instead since I was predicting we would eat dinner at the hospital. We ate YUMMY BLT’s for lunch and then took about an hour nap. When we got up we spent about an hour last-minute cleaning the house, sending last minute e-mails, and getting our stuff ready for the hospital. The entire morning was beautiful and calm.

It was time. We had everything ready to go! Sean and I walked out and as we put our things in the trunk I started crying. Sean suggested we go back inside for a second. We sat on the couch, hugged, and reminded each other that we were going into the hospital a couple and going to leave as a family. Sean prayed over us for strength to get through labor. We loaded the car and drove about 25 minutes North to the Hospital. The car ride was quiet. Our spirits were calm and our minds were racing.

When we got to the hospital, we parked pretty far away from the door. I was ok with this because I knew a little walking would do me good! We got up to the 3^rd floor of the South Tower of the Hospital. We had to wait about 2 minutes for someone to come to the desk. “May I help you?” She asked. I calmly responded, “I think I’m in labor…at least at 41 weeks pregnant I hope I am”. She gave me some paperwork to fill out and had me take a seat in the waiting room. I couldn’t fill it out because I couldn’t think of what day it was or what insurance we had or anything…shortly after a nurse came and took me to a triage room.  We sat and waited a while. A male medical student who told us he had no idea what he was doing came in and attempted to hook me up to the fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor. I helped him out since we had been to labor and delivery before. I feel for the male med students in their OB/GYN rotation because that is the scariest rotation for the guys, but this guy was totally CLUELESS!

The room was really hot. I asked for cooler air or ice or something. We got ice water but no one knew how to turn down the air. For some reason there was a tray in there that looked like a tray nachos at the ballpark would be served on…Sean got it and just started fanning me with it! Haha! A female doctor in her residency checked my cervix. Unfortunately I was only 3 cm dialated and needed to be 4 to be admitted. We were turned away. She left the room and I got dressed. The chief resident came in and said we needed to do a sonogram to check the level of amniotic fluid since I was 41 weeks along…so we got to SEE Lily! Her little hand was covering her eyes. The chief medical resident suggested stripping my membranes to help move labor along…google it if you really want to know…it felt like crazy poking all over my insides. THEN my water broke! Sean said he heard a pop when it happened! YAY- we were taken to Labor and Delivery! I told them I could walk, but they didn’t want me dripping all the way there, so they wheeled me back.

As the nurses were getting me ready, Sean walked our to the car to get our bags and call our families. They measured my vitals and I had a bit of fever. I told them to go down to triage and feel how hot it was in there. Sure enough they took it again in a few minutes and I had cooled down. I was hooked up to an IV with a steady drip of fluids. No meds, just water. I requested a telemetry machine to record the fetal monitoring so I could move around. I let them know I did not want any epidural or other pain medicine. I was prepared and determined to have an all-natural childbirth. Why? To reduce the risk of a c-section, so Lily could be more alert, and so that breastfeeding would come more easily immediately after birth. Yes- I did a lot of thought, research, asking friends, and prayer on all-natural childbirth. Sean and I took an at-home birth bootcamp series of classes to prepare us together. We felt extremely ready. BUT- thankfully I have not experienced much physical pain in my life so I didn’t know what my real pain tolerance was…so an epidural was in the back of my mind for sure…

Contractions started to become more intense, longer, and closer together. I chose to take my IV pole and go on a walk around the hallways of the unit. We walked SLOWLY in a rectangle shape for about 30-40 minutes, stopping occasionally so I could wait out each contraction. Nurses that passed by continually encouraged me and made sure we were doing ok. Sean walked with me every step of the way reminding me during each contraction “You only have to get through this one. This is one day of your life and pretty soon we’ll be sitting at home with Lily enjoying a glass of wine and holding her.” He is the best birth coach. I love him so much.

As we passed our room, I decided to go in and sit down a minute. I tried to sit on the birthing ball, but sitting didn’t feel good so I stood and leaned on the bed. Between contractions I sat and bounced on the ball. A nurse came in and raised the bed so I could stand and lay my head on a pillow during contractions. This felt good. I wanted ice on my neck. The air was turned down to 68 degrees, but I was so hot! She suggested standing and swaying back and forth. I SO wanted to keep all my weight on my right side. Sean got behind me and was massaging in a downward motion on my back and was coaching me to shift my weight every so often. It was so hard. I asked for more ice. I buried my face in it. OH I was so hot! Then the nurse suggested getting in the shower may help ease the pain. Even though I was hot, I thought it was worth a try. She suggested I sit next to the running water and put a towel over the baby monitors on my belly. When a contraction came along, Sean was supposed to fill a little pitcher with hot shower water and pour it over my belly. Sean had his shoes off and pants rolled up and had to constantly reach over me to get the water in the pitcher. I also wanted ice on my back and ice water to drink. Somehow he helped me with all of these things at once! At one point I asked for my cold water to drink. I told him to pour water on me because a contraction was coming on. He thought I meant the cold water so he started to pour it on my head! Hahaha! He is so supportive and was doing everything I asked. It was a very athletic event for both of us!

The contractions started to get very intense. I wanted to stand and sit at the same time. I wanted to feel the hot water with my arms and pour it on my face and also feel the ice on my back. The hot water and the cold ice helped distract me from the pain of the contractions. The contractions got SO painful I didn’t think I could take it any more. I had read in my birth books that at that point I was almost done…but I didn’t think I was because it didn’t seem like it had been that long. From the time my water broke until the time I was in the shower was maybe about 4 hours…Sean just kept saying “you just have to get through this one. This is only one day of your life. Pretty soon we’ll be having a glass of wine and holding Lily”. This got me through.

All the sudden my body started involuntarily pushing. All I could do was yell and grunt. (I was hoarse for a few days just because of this!). I told Sean “It’s time”. He said he would press the nurse button and I told him he needed to just run outside and get the doctor right away. He was barefoot with wet feet sliding all around on a slick floor! He was able to get some nurses to come in and they asked if I could make it over to the bed. Slowly, I was able to walk over and lay on the bed so they could check me and see how far along I was. When I laid down I realized the pain had gotten much better. From what I read in birthing books, I knew by that it was almost time to push!

They checked me and I was fully dilated and effaced. They mentioned they would call my doctor (who was at home with her kids) and she would be there in about 15 minutes. Another doctor came in and was on standby in case our OB was unable to make it. She started heating some essential oils in the room for relaxation. I could not smell it and was totally unaware they were there, but Sean said it helped him to relax. I was asked how I planned to deliver- did I want to stand, squat, kneel, lay, etc…I knew all of these options beforehand, but I could not get off the bed. I was SO tired! It probably would have gone a bit faster if I could have stood because gravity would have helped.

Dr. Pilkington rushed to the hospital with her kids and got there JUST in time to start pushing. I could hear her kids running around in the hallway. Pushing took about 40 minutes but it seemed like forever to me! It was a really hard work out and I was so anxious to meet Lily! Sean was on my left side, a nurse was on my right holding my legs, and Dr. P and the rest of the team were all around me. When I would push, I was told to push with my legs, then Sean and the nurse would push back to resist against me. What a work-out for Sean! This went on a while with the team cheering me on. With each contraction I had to push to the count of 10 while holding my breath. I did this for three repetitions each contraction. Dr. P. noticed my leg holders (Sean and the nurse) were tired, so they set up foot stools near the bed for me to push against.

Dr. P. recommended tying a knot in the end of a towel and having me pull one side while a nurse pulled the other. A tug-of-war that would happen during each contraction. This seemed to work really well and was getting Lily closer and closer. I was asked to look up at the reflection on the celling to see the top of Lily’s head. I could see it but she still seemed so far away- I was the most tired I have EVER been and I still had a lot of hard pushing to do!

At this time, Lily’s heart-rate started to drop, but luckily it went back up each time Dr. P. would tickle Lily’s head with her fingers. Between contractions, I could hear Dr. P’s kids running up and down the hallways in the delivery floor. She had to go out and check on them at least once! The nurses would sit around and chat as if on a break-room at a normal office. It was so funny to me how casual it was for them to be doing what they were doing. Finally, I had a really good tug-of-war session with the nurse. The team cheered me on and counted really loud “One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, TEN!”. All I could hear was Sean’s voice counting. All of the sudden I felt Lily literally wiggle her way out. I could feel it in my entire body. A feeling I will never forget. At 9:07pm she was brought earth-side! Immediately she let out a LOUD cry! Sean looked at me and told me that was our baby. She was immediately placed on my chest (my current facebook profile picture) and we had our first moment as mommy, daddy, and baby. The nurses took her to do some testing. I was dead to the world. I could not open my eyes. All I remember at this point was what I heard.

Lily was busy crying and Sean started talking to her. Immediately she stopped and looked his direction. She knew Daddy’s voice. She always knew him in the womb, too. She would kick when his hand was there and would go crazy when he would sing! Now she got to meet him! Daddy. Just a few minutes later, our families (who had just gotten to town) were able to come in and see her for the first time! Lily had a great birthday. I still can’t believe it happened: A healthy 10 month pregnancy, medicine free delivery, and a healthy baby! I would experience it all again in a heartbeat. It was so wonderful and makes me feel like I can do anything! I am definitely a stronger woman because of this. Waiting for her arrival and working hard to get her here without any numbing medication was a wonderful reminder that God is in control and I am not. She is God’s child and came on His timing. Our hearts are full to have Lily Katherine Hale in our lives.

Check Back Later

I'll post on here with Lily updates sometime soon, but in the meantime I will just be posting short updates on her Facebook group page (which is private). Let me know if you want to be a part of that group!

I plan on updating once per month and sharing the update via Facebook :)

We are SO happy Lily is here!