Never ever make a vow. Or say anything that begins with "This is the last time..." Or " I'll never..." Because that will NOT work out for you, for INSTANCE:
Lets say after four months of doctors and hospitals and myself and my daughter were free to go, I said one or both...but then, we came home to Georgia and before I had even ENTERED THE HOUSE....I reached my hand into our mail box and was ATTACKED by a BAT!!! Which may or may not have bitten me ( apparently they have very tiny teeth...but are also very dangerous so you have to get the Rabies shot "just in case")
Sooooooo, on my very first day in my home after months and months, I spent the morning in the ER getting 6 shots, which PS was bad, but not as bad as having a baby which I'd done the week before so I was able to compare.....ANYWAYS, I still had a pretty good attitude, I mean there is some humor in getting bit by a bat (?) ...and so I maaaaay have said one of those above sweeping statements about the ER and headed home.....
Only to have to return a few hours later when I got a super high fever and thought I was dying. Turns out it was a UTI. Random. But it may or may not have been caused by all those shots....that has yet to be confirmed....but wait... THERE IS MORE.
So, I have to have FOUR follow up doses of rabies shots, which took me back to the hospital several more times, and one EXTRA time because for one of my shots the clinic said it would be open but it wasn't so I had to come back the next day...which was awesome, because its super easy for Brett to get away from work to watch our kids!
However, the last dose was on Tuesday and I as I left I let out a huge sigh of relief and thought those dangerous words once more..."THIS HAD TO BE THE LAST TIME, RIGHT?!"
But THEN right after my last dose I got a SUPER HIGH FEVER AGAIN!!!
Which brings us to yesterday where I thought I would die while taking Tabitha to a planned doctors appointment ( her doctor was so concerned he gave me three Motrin before he would let me leave)...so luckily Brett was able to watch the kids while I went to the hospital clinic and get diagnosed with....Mastitis! Yay!! Another totally awesome thing to have!!
But as I left, I thought YET AGAIN: "Surely this is the last time I will have to be here!!"
But no, tonight, when I was taking my medicine for the mastitis I noticed I was not given the right amount of pills to complete the series... Which means....YUP, you guessed it! Tomorrow I 'll be headed back to the hospital pharmacy to get my prescription sorted out.
But one thing I know for certain, when I leave there tomorrow, I will turn and mentally tell the hospital that I will see it tomorrow...because I've learned my lesson....with me, it's never over.
Edit: oh, and I wrote this whole post and published it and then remembered that in the middle of all that drama I also had the one piece of dental work in my head BREAK OFF so I should also mention I went to the dentist twice.... And who doesn't love THAT?!
January 31, 2013
January 27, 2013
A mother of two...
Today Tabitha is 3 weeks old and two days, and I will have my very first day of parenting two children by myself.
I'm glad the day will have finally arrive. It's been hanging over me for much longer than Tabitha has been alive- the fear of being outnumbered by little people...
However, I received a double jogging stroller as a gift ( what amazingly generous friends I have!!) and I now I feel like if worse comes to worse I'll pile both of them into the stroller and we'll walk until my legs fall off or their lungs fall out... Which ever comes first.
So, speaking of my most generous gift... It was not the only one I received! This weekend I was given the sweetest shower for Tabitha, and honestly once again I was overcome by the generosity of others... I kept thinking things like... " this is my second baby! Second babies don't get showers!" But I was SO blessed by the love of my sweet friends and just being able to look around the room at women who I'd so missed living day to day life with over the last four or five months, reminded me again of the larger community that got us through our trial. We were never alone, The Lord really did provide such Help in time of need... So how can I doubt that He can't get me through today on four hours of sleep? ?! Truly minor in comparison. Hehe
I'm glad the day will have finally arrive. It's been hanging over me for much longer than Tabitha has been alive- the fear of being outnumbered by little people...
However, I received a double jogging stroller as a gift ( what amazingly generous friends I have!!) and I now I feel like if worse comes to worse I'll pile both of them into the stroller and we'll walk until my legs fall off or their lungs fall out... Which ever comes first.
So, speaking of my most generous gift... It was not the only one I received! This weekend I was given the sweetest shower for Tabitha, and honestly once again I was overcome by the generosity of others... I kept thinking things like... " this is my second baby! Second babies don't get showers!" But I was SO blessed by the love of my sweet friends and just being able to look around the room at women who I'd so missed living day to day life with over the last four or five months, reminded me again of the larger community that got us through our trial. We were never alone, The Lord really did provide such Help in time of need... So how can I doubt that He can't get me through today on four hours of sleep? ?! Truly minor in comparison. Hehe
January 20, 2013
Not about babies... Mostly
Today Tabitha is two weeks old. It seems like a lot longer than that. Mostly because I just read in psalms that The Lord "gives sleep to his beloved" and maaaaaan is that a good gift that I'm not receiving right now ;-)
Anyway, when you have a newborn it's hard to think past the next feeding and more importantly the next time you're going to get some sleep. However, there is something else pretty big going on in the Wilson household and I'm pretty excited to tell you the story....
So, this story starts a while ago. Over a year ago. Maybe 2....when Brett went on a prayer walk to seek God about what we should be doing. If I remember correctly Brett was asking more for confirmation regarding what we were already doing, but as it usually is with God, He said what HE wanted to say... And that was regarding the story of Elijah and Elisha and long story short Brett felt like God was telling him that we should follow our friend's Chuck and Deb Wood in their ministry, helping them in their work.
Brett came home and told me. And we discussed what that would probably mean for our future plans....Well, we thought, this must mean we'll be staying in Georgia because that was the Woods' home base, their house was here, Deb's parents were here.... So, I made my peace with more
Georgia in my future ( not my fav)... But not long afterwards we had the Woods over for dinner and Brett told them what God had told him. ( it's kind of awkward to tell someone that God told you to stalk them around, but Chuck and Deb took it well...) and then they told US something equally crazy. The same week God told Brett to follow Chuck wherever he went, God told Chuck to go to San Antonio, Tx. An equally "crazy" request in worldly terms. They were told to get rid of all their possessions, and head to Texas to start from scratch, reaching the city of San Antonio for Jesus.
And so all of a sudden the whole "follow wherever" thing had much more meaning for us!
I must admit I was excited... It was almost like as they said it, my heart said, "of course! THAT'S where we are suppose to go!"
But "going" friends, is much harder than one might think. Especially if you're relying on the Army to send you where you want to go, or more specifically if you want to go to a primarily medical military post and you're an infantry officer. There are just not many jobs there for you! However, we still had all of company command to get through here in Georgia and so our future plans had to take a back burner for a while. But, as we discussed it we realized that if the time came and we weren't offered a job through the Army in SA, then the only thing to do was to get out of the Army and go at it as civilians.
( this was super super scary to me! In so many ways I love the Army and I did not think it was time to leave it... But I tried as best I could to prepare myself for the inevitable...
Then things happened that I never ever expected, we got pregnant. With twins. They were sick... And off to Houston Texas we went..... And during that time Brett gave up his Command early so he could better focus on our family, and we were then faced with the whole " what to do next" thing.
The time had come. San Antonio was calling and normally I would have been FREAKING OUT waiting to see if the Army had a job for Brett there... And I would have spent my time not freaking out looking for civilian jobs for Brett online because, honestly how could we really get one of the few jobs available for an infantry officer there?!
But instead my mind was focused on a little baby, one who still needed medical attention, who we were still trying to keep inside of me...
And you know what? Brett got a job in San Antonio... Without my freakouts and without my needless job searching...there's a lesson there somewhere for a overly obsessive control freak... hmmmm
And, strangely, it may have been largely due to the fact that Tabitha might need extra love and care and where better to get it than the army medical hub? And the Army took that into consideration when making their decisions.
And so, in the end all things did in fact work together to take us exactly where we needed to go.
Did I mention we're probably moving in the middle of March?! And did I mention I have a two year old and a newborn?
It's gonna be awesome around here
Anyway, when you have a newborn it's hard to think past the next feeding and more importantly the next time you're going to get some sleep. However, there is something else pretty big going on in the Wilson household and I'm pretty excited to tell you the story....
So, this story starts a while ago. Over a year ago. Maybe 2....when Brett went on a prayer walk to seek God about what we should be doing. If I remember correctly Brett was asking more for confirmation regarding what we were already doing, but as it usually is with God, He said what HE wanted to say... And that was regarding the story of Elijah and Elisha and long story short Brett felt like God was telling him that we should follow our friend's Chuck and Deb Wood in their ministry, helping them in their work.
Brett came home and told me. And we discussed what that would probably mean for our future plans....Well, we thought, this must mean we'll be staying in Georgia because that was the Woods' home base, their house was here, Deb's parents were here.... So, I made my peace with more
Georgia in my future ( not my fav)... But not long afterwards we had the Woods over for dinner and Brett told them what God had told him. ( it's kind of awkward to tell someone that God told you to stalk them around, but Chuck and Deb took it well...) and then they told US something equally crazy. The same week God told Brett to follow Chuck wherever he went, God told Chuck to go to San Antonio, Tx. An equally "crazy" request in worldly terms. They were told to get rid of all their possessions, and head to Texas to start from scratch, reaching the city of San Antonio for Jesus.
And so all of a sudden the whole "follow wherever" thing had much more meaning for us!
I must admit I was excited... It was almost like as they said it, my heart said, "of course! THAT'S where we are suppose to go!"
But "going" friends, is much harder than one might think. Especially if you're relying on the Army to send you where you want to go, or more specifically if you want to go to a primarily medical military post and you're an infantry officer. There are just not many jobs there for you! However, we still had all of company command to get through here in Georgia and so our future plans had to take a back burner for a while. But, as we discussed it we realized that if the time came and we weren't offered a job through the Army in SA, then the only thing to do was to get out of the Army and go at it as civilians.
( this was super super scary to me! In so many ways I love the Army and I did not think it was time to leave it... But I tried as best I could to prepare myself for the inevitable...
Then things happened that I never ever expected, we got pregnant. With twins. They were sick... And off to Houston Texas we went..... And during that time Brett gave up his Command early so he could better focus on our family, and we were then faced with the whole " what to do next" thing.
The time had come. San Antonio was calling and normally I would have been FREAKING OUT waiting to see if the Army had a job for Brett there... And I would have spent my time not freaking out looking for civilian jobs for Brett online because, honestly how could we really get one of the few jobs available for an infantry officer there?!
But instead my mind was focused on a little baby, one who still needed medical attention, who we were still trying to keep inside of me...
And you know what? Brett got a job in San Antonio... Without my freakouts and without my needless job searching...there's a lesson there somewhere for a overly obsessive control freak... hmmmm
And, strangely, it may have been largely due to the fact that Tabitha might need extra love and care and where better to get it than the army medical hub? And the Army took that into consideration when making their decisions.
And so, in the end all things did in fact work together to take us exactly where we needed to go.
Did I mention we're probably moving in the middle of March?! And did I mention I have a two year old and a newborn?
It's gonna be awesome around here
January 17, 2013
Number of days....
So, many of you, if we are facebook friends, know that I started a little project for Tabitha-really for all of us- a month or so ago. Basically, I got the idea while I was wiling away my time in the hospital for a month, to document each day with a picture. I then posted those pictures on instagram with a count "up" of Tabitha's life thus far ( at the time we were just mildly obsessed with her fetal age to say the least). I then decided to take those pictures and make a larger poster for Tabitha's room of all of them combined. A documentation of our journey if you will...or at least the Houston part of our journey. The part where our family was divided. The part where I was in the hospital, and at the Ronald McDonald house, the part where Tabitha was born, the part where we were loved and taken care of by so many, the part where I knitted, made new friends, watched innumerable TV shows on my iPad and ate a lot.
Anyway, one night I started my project and I did it by making a blank image on photoshop, and I-almost haphazardly-picked a size. 18x24. I then I took each instagram picture, shrunk it to a 2x2 and using the grid function, I placed my pictures....it turned out like this:
Anyway, one night I started my project and I did it by making a blank image on photoshop, and I-almost haphazardly-picked a size. 18x24. I then I took each instagram picture, shrunk it to a 2x2 and using the grid function, I placed my pictures....it turned out like this:
(I think this is going to be an awesome visual way to tell various stories
to our kids about this story in our lives, don't you think?)
Now, you may notice something here....first of all, take note that the first picture is of Ransom on the plane on our way to Houston. A fitting beginning. You'll also notice the last picture is a picture of Ransom on the plane LEAVING Houston. You may ALSO notice that the size did not change, and that there are no white spaces. I also did not miss a day or do multiple pictures for any day either....
That's right. My 18x24 poster was the correct size TO. THE. DAY. of when we would leave. There had been a couple of times, when I was adding my pictures that I had pondered what I would do with the blank space at the end...because I just didn't see how I'd possibly fill up the poster ( I really wanted to have the two airplane pictures as bookends.) and had come up with some options to make it aesthetically pleasing when Tabitha arrived at, say, 35 weeks...or 36....or 37....but none of this happened. And when she was finally born, and our flights were booked home, I counted my days and realized that my 18x24 poster of 2x2 pictures, aka 108 days was actually a prophetic hint of just exactly how long we would be on our journey.
Crazy, huh?
January 13, 2013
Epilogue
As you all know, I'm pretty introspective and blogging is one of my major forms of therapy when it comes to dealing with life. And right now I have an actual LIST of blog posts that need to be written. After Ransom was born I wrote a lot while I was nursing, and I also watched a lot of Netflix while I was nursing... And I'm sure that will come with Tabitha too... But honestly, I've spent most of my time just staring at My teeny tiny baby girl. I have done nothing much besides.
But, something happened when Tabitha was about a day old that I think describes my general feeling the last week really really well....
It's important for me to document tha feeling because we got back to Georgia last night and REAL LIFE is about to set in in a major way ( like the fact that I'm writing this in the ER because I may have been bitten by a bat last night... That's right. A bat. Welcome home!! Let the games begin!) and I really want to hold on to the marvel of the end of our journey of having our twins.
As sad as I am about Priscilla, and as much as the grief for her is still a process. The celebration of Tabitha's life is nothing short of pure joy.
When I was still in the hospital, and our many visitors had all dispersed for a few minutes- and even Brett had stepped out to run an errand. I sat holding a post-feed baby. She had nestled into my arm and I was just sitting there thanking God for her Life, when the nurses aid came in to take my blood pressure. As she did her thing she said, "It feels good in here." And I said something about how the air conditioner was on... But she replied that no, it wasnt that. She looked down at us and said, "it feels peaceful."
She was so right. After nights when I literally used up tissue boxes, after being separated as a family for four months, after a month hospital stay and 3 months in the Ronald McDonald house... We are peaceful.
And I've been feeling that peace for days. ( minus our 24 hours in the NICU.. But that's another story). I have been delighting in our little answer to prayer. And how, despite her size. It's really not that little at all.
I am now struggling with the constant need of telling EVERYONE our story, so that EVERYONE will know what God has done for us.
This is a good problem to have.
But, something happened when Tabitha was about a day old that I think describes my general feeling the last week really really well....
It's important for me to document tha feeling because we got back to Georgia last night and REAL LIFE is about to set in in a major way ( like the fact that I'm writing this in the ER because I may have been bitten by a bat last night... That's right. A bat. Welcome home!! Let the games begin!) and I really want to hold on to the marvel of the end of our journey of having our twins.
As sad as I am about Priscilla, and as much as the grief for her is still a process. The celebration of Tabitha's life is nothing short of pure joy.
When I was still in the hospital, and our many visitors had all dispersed for a few minutes- and even Brett had stepped out to run an errand. I sat holding a post-feed baby. She had nestled into my arm and I was just sitting there thanking God for her Life, when the nurses aid came in to take my blood pressure. As she did her thing she said, "It feels good in here." And I said something about how the air conditioner was on... But she replied that no, it wasnt that. She looked down at us and said, "it feels peaceful."
She was so right. After nights when I literally used up tissue boxes, after being separated as a family for four months, after a month hospital stay and 3 months in the Ronald McDonald house... We are peaceful.
And I've been feeling that peace for days. ( minus our 24 hours in the NICU.. But that's another story). I have been delighting in our little answer to prayer. And how, despite her size. It's really not that little at all.
I am now struggling with the constant need of telling EVERYONE our story, so that EVERYONE will know what God has done for us.
This is a good problem to have.
January 12, 2013
Tabitha's birth story.
It has been one week since we first experienced the miracle of Tabitha in our lives, so last night while Tabitha was enjoying her four hours of awake time from 1am to 4am- I started writing out the story of how she was born...
I've heard that every birth is unique and no two are the same, but you can't help thinking, after one child, that SURELY it can't be THAT different, all the same components are there, right?!
Wrong. If I hadn't gotten a baby at the end of each experience my mind and body would have a hard time putting the two together at all, they were THAT different!
Without further ado, how Tabitha Lorien came into this world....
It should first be noted that Tabitha WAS going to be induced on Sunday the 7th. Something I reeeeally didn't want I figured my likelihood of having a c-section went way up if I was induced and I really wanted Tabitha to come on her own terms. That being said, I spent the week of Christmas and New Years WILLING myself into having a baby. I did anything ( minus cod liver oil, because...ew) and yet Tabitha did not come. Finally I gave up and resigned myself to an induction. On Friday, Brett, Ransom and I, all went in for my very last biophysical profile ultrasound and nonstress test. Tabitha did great and I said goodbye to all the nurses who'd seen me three times a week for a month ( and tons before that...) then Brett and Ransom and I spent the day together. We ate at the Black Walnut cafe for dinner and Ransom was horribly behaved ( we're talking spanking in the bathroom bad), but we put him in the stroller after dinner and walked the block or so it takes to get to the Chocolate Bar and bought a piece of their giant chocolate cake to go. My sweet friend Melinda had brought us a piece before Christmas and it was AH-mazing ...so much so I had been wanting another piece ever since! We then headed home to the Ronald McDonald House where Ransom had to have a come to Jesus moment where we informed him he couldn't ask for "water!" Every five seconds after being put to bed. He responded with tears of repentance. (Minus the repentance part). Finally around 8:30, we ate our amazing cake and read a little bit of the book Heidi out loud ( Brett never read it as a kid, probably because Heidi was a girl and he didnt read "girl books" a MAJOR misstep if you ask me...so I've slowly been rectifying his early sexist ways now that he's an adult..) then off to bed.
Around 3:30am, I was awakened by my water breaking. Just a little bit, enough to get me out of bed to investigate and then waaaay more to confirm that, yes, that wasnt a weird dream.
I then texted my parents and my sister because I wanted them to have a head start... Then I calmly woke up Brett and told him what had happened. He then called his mom and we implemented the plan that we had argued about a few days before... The "what to do with sleeping Ransom if I go into labor in the middle of the night." I had INSISTED that Ransom did not need to be awoken and dragged to the hospital so now the question was who to watch him at 4:00am until my family arrived.... It ended up being a Ronald McDonald Mom who was (strangely) awake and playing on her iPad outside her bedroom. We prevailed upon her to watch the baby monitor till my parents arrived and off we went to the hospital. All this was done calmly and without much drama because even though my water broke I wasn't having any contractions. In fact, when I called the hospital saying I was coming in, the resident doctor was incredulous that my water had actually broken. "Well, come on in and IF your water has ACTUALLY broken.." To which I kind of laughed, because I still don't see how you'd mistake something like that... And then the doctor realized she'd been rude and tried to tell me how she'd delivered 4 babies that night or something...But, like I said, I hadn't had any contractions yet -so lucky her I wasn't super annoyed.
At the hospital we got checked into triage and I was relieved to see that Tabitha's heart was doing great and she didnt seem to be in any distress! This was good because we got a call from the lady at the Ronald McDonald house saying Ransom had woken up ( I'm guessing he'd rolled
over in his sleep and she'd jumped the gun...) so Brett went back to wait for my parents and to put Ransom back to sleep ( it was about 5am at this point).
When they checked me when I arrived at the hospital I was about 4cm-which, considering I'd been having pretty serious contractions for almost 12 hours with Ransom and I was only a 3...I was shocked! I hadn't even had any seriously painful contractions yet!
But they set me up in labor and delivery and I started feeling the contractions more and more and by the time Brett and my Mom and sister arrived around 6:30 I was definitely feeling them pretty strongly. But I was still able to talk through them and figured I still had a way to go ( once again I was comparing to my previous delivery on how much pain I had been in). But, when they checked my cervix again, I was at 7cm!! I was SHOCKED. But, definitely excited that things were moving so fast!
I also started discussing getting an epidural ( something I really wanted because, somehow the thought of delivering two babies... No matter how small Priscilla may be, just seemed easier with drugs) and I told my sister and mom that I would wait till after shift change ( it was 7am by then)...however, Anna has had a fast delivery before and she pushed it a little bit knowing that my pain level and the fastness of my contractions was steadily increasing. Boy am I glad she did!! By the time I got the epidural I think I was actually past transition ( and the doctor who did it warned me that it probably wouldn't be in full effect before I delivered!) sure enough, I was in more and more pain and the nurses were discussing bringing the doctor back in when I told them they had better check me again before doing anything. And sure enough... I was a full 10cm! I had to literally wait to push for Dr. Ruano to arrive!!! ( it was very important to me that he deliver the girls and I'm so very glad he made it!)
Once again things were sooo different from Ransom's delivery where I just had a midwife and a nurse and Brett with me, this time I had two doctors, their attending nurse, two nurses on one side of me and Brett and my mom on the other... Plus a good 8 people who were the nurses and doctors there to assess Tabitha once she was born ( believe me I did not begrudge one person in that room!!! They were all important). The other marked difference in delivery is than while I got an epidural with Ransom when I was 8cm and hadn't progressed in two hours, I had time for a full on nap before I woke up and was ready to push. With Tabitha, I got one when I was around 7cm and was pushing her out within the hour... And it had NOT taken its effect! Ring of fire indeed! It probably only took about 15 minutes all told in pushing but it felt like an eternity ( also in comparison to the two pushes that got my "giant" 8lb baby out two years before... Go figure). Anyway, I am grateful that the epidural did start to work for the afterbirth and the birth of Priscilla. I had decided I didn't want to see her knowing that seeing her on ultrasound after her passing was hard enough) , and after asking Dr.Ruano what her condition was and his advice to Brett, Brett decided the same. I am so glad she was wrapped in her special blanket I made for her and I know that she will always have our love and a major roll in the story of her sister's life as well as our own...
The longest half second in the world was the half second after Tabitha was born and she let out a cry. I think I still had so much fear wrapped up in her birth, and while it was TERRIBLY hard to have her immediately whisked to the other side of the room for assessment I was grateful we had a team of doctors there to check her over. And when we did finally get to hold her ( and it probably wasnt even that long) she opened her eyes and looked at me and Brett for longest time and we all fell in love. Tabitha, our little miracle baby born at 9:33 on 01/05/13 at 5lbs and 7 oz, 18 inches long.
When Ransom was born, and the nurse called out the time of 14:21 as time of birth, we immediately looked at each other and knew we were claiming John 14:21 as Ransom's birth verse. With Tabitha we once again found ourselves in John 9:33... Especially since the story of the blind man who is healed spoke to me during this experience. But in verse 33 the man who was no longer blind told the Pharisee's that someone who could heal someone like him must be God. In the same way we acknowledge that even a room full of doctors could not heal Tabitha's heart to the point that she does not need any of the many surgeries projected for her future. Those doctors and all their medicine could not keep her from delivering till full term, or give her a perfectly healthy uncomplicated delivery. Only someone who must be the Christ....
I've heard that every birth is unique and no two are the same, but you can't help thinking, after one child, that SURELY it can't be THAT different, all the same components are there, right?!
Wrong. If I hadn't gotten a baby at the end of each experience my mind and body would have a hard time putting the two together at all, they were THAT different!
Without further ado, how Tabitha Lorien came into this world....
It should first be noted that Tabitha WAS going to be induced on Sunday the 7th. Something I reeeeally didn't want I figured my likelihood of having a c-section went way up if I was induced and I really wanted Tabitha to come on her own terms. That being said, I spent the week of Christmas and New Years WILLING myself into having a baby. I did anything ( minus cod liver oil, because...ew) and yet Tabitha did not come. Finally I gave up and resigned myself to an induction. On Friday, Brett, Ransom and I, all went in for my very last biophysical profile ultrasound and nonstress test. Tabitha did great and I said goodbye to all the nurses who'd seen me three times a week for a month ( and tons before that...) then Brett and Ransom and I spent the day together. We ate at the Black Walnut cafe for dinner and Ransom was horribly behaved ( we're talking spanking in the bathroom bad), but we put him in the stroller after dinner and walked the block or so it takes to get to the Chocolate Bar and bought a piece of their giant chocolate cake to go. My sweet friend Melinda had brought us a piece before Christmas and it was AH-mazing ...so much so I had been wanting another piece ever since! We then headed home to the Ronald McDonald House where Ransom had to have a come to Jesus moment where we informed him he couldn't ask for "water!" Every five seconds after being put to bed. He responded with tears of repentance. (Minus the repentance part). Finally around 8:30, we ate our amazing cake and read a little bit of the book Heidi out loud ( Brett never read it as a kid, probably because Heidi was a girl and he didnt read "girl books" a MAJOR misstep if you ask me...so I've slowly been rectifying his early sexist ways now that he's an adult..) then off to bed.
Around 3:30am, I was awakened by my water breaking. Just a little bit, enough to get me out of bed to investigate and then waaaay more to confirm that, yes, that wasnt a weird dream.
I then texted my parents and my sister because I wanted them to have a head start... Then I calmly woke up Brett and told him what had happened. He then called his mom and we implemented the plan that we had argued about a few days before... The "what to do with sleeping Ransom if I go into labor in the middle of the night." I had INSISTED that Ransom did not need to be awoken and dragged to the hospital so now the question was who to watch him at 4:00am until my family arrived.... It ended up being a Ronald McDonald Mom who was (strangely) awake and playing on her iPad outside her bedroom. We prevailed upon her to watch the baby monitor till my parents arrived and off we went to the hospital. All this was done calmly and without much drama because even though my water broke I wasn't having any contractions. In fact, when I called the hospital saying I was coming in, the resident doctor was incredulous that my water had actually broken. "Well, come on in and IF your water has ACTUALLY broken.." To which I kind of laughed, because I still don't see how you'd mistake something like that... And then the doctor realized she'd been rude and tried to tell me how she'd delivered 4 babies that night or something...But, like I said, I hadn't had any contractions yet -so lucky her I wasn't super annoyed.
At the hospital we got checked into triage and I was relieved to see that Tabitha's heart was doing great and she didnt seem to be in any distress! This was good because we got a call from the lady at the Ronald McDonald house saying Ransom had woken up ( I'm guessing he'd rolled
over in his sleep and she'd jumped the gun...) so Brett went back to wait for my parents and to put Ransom back to sleep ( it was about 5am at this point).
When they checked me when I arrived at the hospital I was about 4cm-which, considering I'd been having pretty serious contractions for almost 12 hours with Ransom and I was only a 3...I was shocked! I hadn't even had any seriously painful contractions yet!
But they set me up in labor and delivery and I started feeling the contractions more and more and by the time Brett and my Mom and sister arrived around 6:30 I was definitely feeling them pretty strongly. But I was still able to talk through them and figured I still had a way to go ( once again I was comparing to my previous delivery on how much pain I had been in). But, when they checked my cervix again, I was at 7cm!! I was SHOCKED. But, definitely excited that things were moving so fast!
I also started discussing getting an epidural ( something I really wanted because, somehow the thought of delivering two babies... No matter how small Priscilla may be, just seemed easier with drugs) and I told my sister and mom that I would wait till after shift change ( it was 7am by then)...however, Anna has had a fast delivery before and she pushed it a little bit knowing that my pain level and the fastness of my contractions was steadily increasing. Boy am I glad she did!! By the time I got the epidural I think I was actually past transition ( and the doctor who did it warned me that it probably wouldn't be in full effect before I delivered!) sure enough, I was in more and more pain and the nurses were discussing bringing the doctor back in when I told them they had better check me again before doing anything. And sure enough... I was a full 10cm! I had to literally wait to push for Dr. Ruano to arrive!!! ( it was very important to me that he deliver the girls and I'm so very glad he made it!)
Once again things were sooo different from Ransom's delivery where I just had a midwife and a nurse and Brett with me, this time I had two doctors, their attending nurse, two nurses on one side of me and Brett and my mom on the other... Plus a good 8 people who were the nurses and doctors there to assess Tabitha once she was born ( believe me I did not begrudge one person in that room!!! They were all important). The other marked difference in delivery is than while I got an epidural with Ransom when I was 8cm and hadn't progressed in two hours, I had time for a full on nap before I woke up and was ready to push. With Tabitha, I got one when I was around 7cm and was pushing her out within the hour... And it had NOT taken its effect! Ring of fire indeed! It probably only took about 15 minutes all told in pushing but it felt like an eternity ( also in comparison to the two pushes that got my "giant" 8lb baby out two years before... Go figure). Anyway, I am grateful that the epidural did start to work for the afterbirth and the birth of Priscilla. I had decided I didn't want to see her knowing that seeing her on ultrasound after her passing was hard enough) , and after asking Dr.Ruano what her condition was and his advice to Brett, Brett decided the same. I am so glad she was wrapped in her special blanket I made for her and I know that she will always have our love and a major roll in the story of her sister's life as well as our own...
The longest half second in the world was the half second after Tabitha was born and she let out a cry. I think I still had so much fear wrapped up in her birth, and while it was TERRIBLY hard to have her immediately whisked to the other side of the room for assessment I was grateful we had a team of doctors there to check her over. And when we did finally get to hold her ( and it probably wasnt even that long) she opened her eyes and looked at me and Brett for longest time and we all fell in love. Tabitha, our little miracle baby born at 9:33 on 01/05/13 at 5lbs and 7 oz, 18 inches long.
When Ransom was born, and the nurse called out the time of 14:21 as time of birth, we immediately looked at each other and knew we were claiming John 14:21 as Ransom's birth verse. With Tabitha we once again found ourselves in John 9:33... Especially since the story of the blind man who is healed spoke to me during this experience. But in verse 33 the man who was no longer blind told the Pharisee's that someone who could heal someone like him must be God. In the same way we acknowledge that even a room full of doctors could not heal Tabitha's heart to the point that she does not need any of the many surgeries projected for her future. Those doctors and all their medicine could not keep her from delivering till full term, or give her a perfectly healthy uncomplicated delivery. Only someone who must be the Christ....
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