Here is some of the story leading up to meeting our little
girl. I had to find a new doctor 5 weeks
before my due date in a place I had never been to. I went from a female doctor in an all female
OBGYN women’s center to a small clinic with only male family doctors, which is
the only clinic in the county. I don’t
have a preference whether my doctor is a man or woman, but the change was a
total opposite. I first made an appointment
with the only OBGYN in Nephi because there wasn’t one in Delta, but found out
he didn’t take my insurance. I called
the clinic and asked for any doctor that was accepting new patients. I wanted to get into him as soon as I could
because I didn’t know how the end of my pregnancy would go. I only had 3 appointments with this doctor so
we got to know each other pretty quick.
Each week, he would say, “Let’s make an appointment for next week, but I
don’t think you will make it that far.” Or “You will probably have her this
weekend, but I will be at Youth Conference.”
And each week I would return feeling quite uncomfortable and
anxious. It was hard to know I was full
term, but nothing was happening.
At my 40 week appointment, my doctor asked if I wanted to be
induced and I was fine with it because I really didn’t want to wait any
longer. Lots of people have said that
contractions are much worse when you are induced, but I didn’t have anything to
compare it to. We were scheduled to be
at the hospital at 5:00 Monday morning, Aug 6, so they could start the Pitocin. That meant getting up at 4:00 to have a good
breakfast since it would be the only time I could eat that day and leaving by
4:30. That was the beginning of the
sleep deprived nights. Once I was settled
in, I tried to get a little sleep with all the monitors attached, but it didn’t
happen. Bob slept quite soundly for a
few hours until he was needed.
The doctor came in about 7:30 when my contractions were
starting to get intense. He said he
would order the epidural, even though I was still managing pretty well. The nurses kept commenting that I was smiling
the whole time, unlike most women, but it was really my coping strategy for
dealing with emotion. My fake calm self
comes out when I have to share my feelings, give a talk, or deal with
pain. The doctor and anesthesiologist
came in about 9:00, soon after my water broke, and found out that I was too far
along to get an epidural. You should
have seen the big fake smile on my face then pretending that I was ok with it.
About an hour later, 9:56 AM, Aubrey was born, with a little
help from the suction cup. She was 8
lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. She had
lots of dark hair. She also has quite
the set of lungs, which she is continually using. She had her days and nights mixed up the
first couple weeks, but now she sleeps pretty soundly, only waking up once or
twice. I had a lot of time to myself
during that time because she was asleep all day and I really had to adjust once
she needed my attention during the day.
Here is a bunch of pictures taken during her first month. We are excited for what the future will bring.
