Welcome to this sweet girl and baby number 10!: Hannah Pollyanna, born at 5:24pm January 9, 2023! She was born at 37 weeks weighing 6lbs 4oz and 18.5 inches long! She is just as sweet and perfect as can be! What a blessing to have this pregnancy come to a beautiful ending today!
After having a traumatic birth with placental abruption at 32 weeks, emergency c-section, and 17 day NICU stay with our almost 2 year old, finding out we were expecting again came with alot of anxiety! I went to the OB just as soon as I possibly could in the first trimester to check things out. Before my c-section I kind of took pregnancy and birth for granted having had 8 perfect natural births in a row. That confidence in pregnancy and birth all changed after having an emergency birth situation. Every OB appointment I feared for the worst and always left relieved to hear baby's heartbeat and growth were perfectly normal. At about 11 weeks we found out through bloodwork it was a girl! Who even knew they determined gender through bloodwork these days...lol? The excitement grew each week that passed and when I made it beyond 33 weeks the age when Luke was born, I felt pretty relieved and just wanted to make it full term and get the baby out!
I was very careful not to do too much and push myself into preterm labor. I would lay down many times throughout the day anytime I had braxton hicks contractions fearing it would bring on real labor. I would also obsess with kick counts and make sure I felt some good movement from baby before getting back up. I'd drink ice water and wiggle my belly to wake the baby up all the time just to be sure she was still alive. The kids would often ransack the house while I rested, but I knew I needed to keep baby in atleast until 37 weeks!
Once I hit 36 weeks and 5 days I felt a sudden urge to clean everything and was close enough to term to feel confident with going into labor. The kids and I deep cleaned the Nissan NV, washed all the carseats, and scrubbed the kitchen grout on Friday and Saturday! The next day was Sunday which is a long day at church with all the kiddos and no place to lay down. I had lots of contractions on Sunday, but figured it was just from being up all day and not resting. However, going to bed Sunday night I was woken up all throughout the night with strong contractions. When 7 am rolled around and no slow down of contractions I decided to go into labor and delivery! I normally would have labored at home longer until the contractions were more intense and closer together, but I needed to hear the baby's heartbeat for my peace of mind.
Chris got up with me and we got to the triage room around 8:30am to find I was at 5-6cm dilated. Because of my most recent birth being a placental abruption with fetal distress the hospital of course wanted continuous monitoring on the baby. The fetal monitor was really finicky and only liked to pick up good heart tones while I was on my back in the hospital bed. I labored like this for 6 hours fearing the heart rate would be lost with each movement I made! I had so many contractions coming just minutes apart one on top of the other and hours later had only progressed to 7cm. Laying on your back is the most painful and unproductive way to labor naturally and unmedicated, which I knew, but was willing to suffer through it just to hear the heartbeat continuously. Finally around 3pm the midwife seeing the pain I'm in on my back and lack of progress had the nurses put a wireless fetal monitor on me and brought a birthing ball to sit upright and move around to get things moving!
Since labor wasn't progressing very fast Chris left to go check on the kids and take our oldest son to work at Walgreens. Chris called me at around 5:15pm. to tell me he is on his way back to the hospital. The contractions were becoming unbearable at this point and I asked for pain medication...lol. The midwife suggested not doing pain meds since it could stall the labor even more and make the baby drowsy thus lowering the heart rate. She assures me baby will just shoot right out soon, and she was right! About 10 minutes later baby Hannah made her grand appearance! Chris didn't get there until about 30 minutes after she was born! I didn't even really care at that point he missed the birth because I was just relieved to have her out safe and healthy! He's missed 2 other births on overseas deployments so having him there shortly after the birth was good enough for me.
This pregnancy and birth was a true test of faith and caused much prayer from the moment we found out we were expecting. Hannah was the perfect name for a child greatly prayed for. The middle name Pollyanna is after my mom, Polly Anne❤ because I couldn't think of a more kind hearted person to be named after.
Thank God for answered prayers of a full term birth and successful vbac!
1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
