Lillian Mae!

Lillian Mae Lawatsch

February 25, 2011 2:49am

7 lbs 4.8 oz, 20 inches

It's official, our family is complete! Lillian joined us on February 25th and life has been a blur since then. The 24th started like most other days with Julie going to Marcie's and me heading to work. At that point I had pretty much given up on thinking about going into labor and was trying to go about things like normal. During the morning I was having some pretty regular contractions and around 11:30 I texted Steve to let him know that I'd been having some regular contractions but that they were still 10 minutes apart. An hour later I texted him to let him know it seemed like they'd stopped. I took off for lunch and while I was out started having contractions again with some regularity. They were starting to get rather painful and I ended up taking a long lunch trying to figure out what was going on. As I headed back to the office at 2:30 I texted Steve to let him know that they were back and I was going to head home. I went to the office to finish up a couple of things and let people know what was going on and then headed home to pack the rest of our stuff up before heading to the hospital. My contractions still weren't close enough so when I got home I emptied the dishwasher, loaded it and tidied up in the kitchen and other rooms until Steve got home. When he got home we sat down to watch some tv / get some rest but that didn't last long before I said it was time to go. Meanwhile Jan had texted me to see what the plan was for Julie on Friday (since she watches her and we usually meet at my office) so I called her to ask her to pick Julie up at Marcie's on Thursday evening and keep her since we were heading to the hospital. I held off on notifying anyone else since last time had been a false alarm and I was really nervous about that happening again.

We were at the hospital around 5pm and went to OB triage which was full so they put us in a recovery room in labor and delivery which was brand new so as they attempted to settle us in and start monitoring the contractions they had to keep finding the equipment. After a little while we were informed that they would admit me since I was 4cm dilated which was definitely good news to me! We moved over to a labor room when one became available and started to spread the word. After a couple of hours I was ready for the epidural and had that put in. Steve hadn't eaten so he called Zack and Leigh who were kind enough to bring some dinner for him and then come up and hang out with us for a little while. By 10pm I was ready to go to sleep for a little while in between all the doctors and nurses coming in to check everything. At 12am I wasn't progressing much so Dr Halverson made the decision to break my water which was easier said than done :) After that was done she said that if by 1am I wasn't doing better they would do a dose of pitocin which is what ended up happening. All night long they were having trouble tracking my contractions and that continued after they administered the pitocin. When a nurse came in at 2:30am she was adjusting my monitors and asked about my contractions. I told her that I was feeling them much more than I had before and had even pushed the button for a couple of extra doses of epidural recently. She was surprised since they didn't show me having any stronger / more regular contractions and asked if I wanted her to check me to see where we were at which I quickly agreed to. Moments later Steve and I were both brought to full alertness when she said I was complete. A quick look at the clock made us both chuckle as it was 2:30am which was the exact time that we had reached this point when I was delivering Julie too. In another dose of deja vue she asked me to try pushing and quickly said, "Ok, stop, you're a good pusher"

While we waited for the doctor and the rest of the delivery team to arrive Steve and I couldn't stop smiling and laughing about the similarities to Julie's birth (same time of night, waking up from a solid sleep to deliver, same doctor) and wondering if the delivery would go as quickly as it did with Julie. Soon everyone was assembled and it was time to have a baby. Dr Halverson asked me to push on the next contraction and on the second push I felt Lillian's head arrive followed quickly by the rest of her at 2:49am! As it turned out her delivery was very much like Julie's, nice and quick. They were also born at almost the same time of night as Julie was born at 2:50am.

The rest of the night passed quickly and in a bit of a blur as we finished up in that room and then moved down to a room in the mother baby section of the floor. We were there by 6am and Steve took off to finish sub plans at school and then go home for a little bit of sleep while Lily and I got some sleep at the hospital. The nurses took her to the nursery and I was starting to settle in when her nurse came in around 7:30 to tell me that she wasn't responding the way she should and had been put on IV fluids and was being monitored closely. Apparently she had turned blue a couple of times and was coughing up some bloody mucus. They ran blood tests and did a chest xray which found a little bit of fluid in her chest which was probably some amniotic fluid that she hadn't coughed up during the delivery. Everything else was fine but she had to spend all of Friday in the nursery being monitored and weaned off of IV fluids before she could come back into our room and breastfeed. During the day Jan brought Julie to see us and she was so bummed that she couldn't see her sister, however, one of the nurses brought Lily out to the hallway from the nursery so that she could look at her. That evening when Jan and Gary brought Julie back to visit again (and brought topopo salad from El Azteco) Lily was finally able to come back into our room and everyone was able to hold her!

Saturday morning we were told that Lily was able to go home so we just had to wait for my Dr to come by and give me the all clear which finally happened around noon. By the time all was said and done it was mid afternoon and we were headed home!