Back Blogging: It's a baby girl

Our due date to welcome Baby O into the world was January 16th, 2016 but for the last few months of my pregnancy I had a fear of going early. At birth, I weighed 5 lbs and I spoke with the OBYGN about that being due to prenatal nutrition or if my birth mother went into early labor. I spoke with him about how that would impact my own delivery. He assured me that it was not factor in my own situation.

Lets back up to the week of Christmas. While at work in Anderson, my car transmission died. I was stuck 45 minutes from home and wound up having to call a tow truck to bring me and my Nissan back to Greenville. While riding in the tow truck, I suddenly was VERY aware of my babys head. The truck was very shaky and I honestly felt like I was sitting on top of the baby. It was a horrible feeling and I started texting Richard. I was worried that the baby was so low that labor would happen any minute in the tow truck. I tried my best to hover over the seat and lift my rear end up so that the sharp pains and discomfort would ease up. Well we finally made it back to Greenville and no problems. After that ride however, I began to have those same sharp pains while sitting down. I often had to get up from sitting because of them. This went on for a few days. We celebrated Christmas at our house with the entire O'Neal family. It was lovely to have everyone here and we were so thankful that everyone drove to be with us since we were stuck within a certain proximity of the hospital.

Since Richard had the week of Christmas off, it was his job to cover for the residents who had the week of New Years off. Beginning Sunday the 27th I had a strange feeling it would be just around the corner before this baby arrived. The bags were already in my car and I had everything set. Sunday I spoke to Richard and urged him to have a conversation on Monday with his attending physician about an In-case of Emergency plan for coverage. I believe my exact words were "Richard this baby is coming- you need to have a plan in place". Sunday night, I began my bloody show. My wonderful OBGYN friend said when I talked to her that it sounded like things were moving. I went to work Monday and still had that horrible feeling looming over me that this would happen very soon. I moved all my visits that were spread out that week to Monday and saw everyone. I went home and we had a normal night. I asked Richard to give my lower back a rub because it was aching a little bit. Just for kicks before bed I read the Labor and Delivery chapter of my book. In there is said "you might want to cover the mattress with something incase your water breaks while you're asleep". In my mind, I thought "Noted: will accomplish tomorrow". Richard was asleep and I quickly drifted off too (10:30 pm). At 12:30 I woke to a "POP" and a slight gush of fluid. I softly said "Richard.... Richard..", but Mr. Soundsleeper didn't stir. Finally I had to yell his name a little bit. "Richard- I think my water just broke". Richard leaped out of our bed so quickly it was funny. We had NO idea what we needed to do to get to the hospital. I took a shower while Richard contacted the hospital to see and then I made him get a shower before we left. Poor Luka was so freaked out by all of our frantic behavior at 1 am. We contacted my best friend and asked her to take care of him in the morning (they live a mile down the road) so we knew he'd be in good hands.  We made it to the hospital triage by 1:30 am.

In Labor

I won't go into details about the experience but by 3:30 I was 4ish centimeters and ready to go to Labor and Delivery. All of the nurses we encountered in the journey were wonderful and it was such a wonderful experience. At this point I called my parents to let them know I was in labor and being admitted. My sister, her husband and my brand new niece had just arrived in PA for a visit plus, my parents were throwing a huge NYE party on Saturday.  I am certain none of them went back to bed after that phone call! I had my epidural placed and sent Richard on his way to go round on his patients.  Around 9 ish the doctor came to check me and determined I was a "good 9 cm". He asked the nurse to have this giant egg/yoga ball type thing placed  between my legs to allow babys head to come a bit further down. At 10:30 he came back to check again and said it "looked great and wouldn't be long" he also asked the nurse to do some practice pushes with me. Well,  we did about 3 practice pushes and the doctor had to come back because her head was right there.  There was a total of about 15 minutes of pushing before I was told to stop.  I was too focused to understand Richard when he told me the baby had its cord wrapped twice around its neck (this hit me the next day). I was able to push again and before I knew it the Doctor said " OK Dad, tell mom what we have". Richard said "it's a girl " and he immediately began to cry.  I was too concerned about him that I didn't even cry (for all of you who know me -this is a shocker). Waiting on finding out the gender was amazing and so magical.  I honestly don't think we'd ever find out after that experience. It was too perfect

Our baby girl was born on December 29th, 2015. She weighed 5 lbs 8 oz and was 19 inches long.

Richards family arrived at the hospital within the hour of her birth and were the 1st people to see her. Melanie purchased premie clothes which later were a huge help as our baby wore those for about the 1st month because she was so small. The next few days in the hospital were very busy but everyone we encountered were amazing. There wasn't a lot of sleep being had at those nights in part because she didn't sleep but mostly because I couldn't not stop staring at the miracle that we had created. 

We came home on NYE and how perfect that was too. In 2008 on NYE after months of "talking" , Richard and I finally put a title to our relationship.  In 2015, we brought our baby Lillie Jean O'Neal home. 

While in the hospital I had the lactation consultants on speed dial and our mom/baby nurses were amazing.  There were a lot of feeding and latching problems initially so our girl dropped down to 5 lbs while in the hospital. It was an extremely stressful first week monitoring her and trying to make sure she was getting enough, adjusting to no sleep and not to mention the healing that was very slowly occurring from childbirth.  We had 2 pediatric appointments too.  Needless to say we were overwhelmed but having my parents here that first weekend was incredible.  They ran errands for baby items while we bonded as a family.  My mom stayed to help and single handedly organized my life and took care of us with food and clean laundry.  I cannot sing her praises enough. 

It was amazing for us the immediate love we felt for her.  Richard put it best when he said that he immediately felt so important to someone so little.  We have a very important role in her life and it's amazing how that clicked so immediately with both of us.  We love our precious girl and are honored God has chosen us to raise her.