The whole story....if you're insterested...

Well, I've been meaning to get this done for a week now....but I'll tell you what...balancing life with 2 kids is a whole new world. By some miracle both babes are sleeping at the same time, so I am going to see how much I can get done here.....

So, November was kind of a crazy month for us! I had my studio holiday recital on Nov. 21st. The doctors actually wanted to have the amniocentesis test on the 20th and the c-section right after, but I said NO....I have to wait at least until after the 21st because of my studio recital (which I am glad I did now). So, the recital went very well....I am very proud of all these wonderful students....they sounded so good. And although it was pre-Thanksgiving, we did some Christmas music too, which was really fun. I have been so lucky to have such great students here in Rapid City.


Can you believe the bellly on that girl in the black on the right? whew!

LucyMae looks like she really enjoyed the event huh? Sam is so great to come to all my studio recitals and take care of LucyMae and help out.

This is all of my students. I only have 10 right now, and it's perfect. I don't know that I could handle more with 2 kids now.

WARNING: the text below is long and detailed, so skip to the pictures if you want...remember, this is more for me than anything!

So, on Saturday night we picked Sam's mom up from the airport. She was here to watch LucyMae while we were to have the baby on Monday. Well...Monday morning (the 23rd of Nov.) we went to the hospital and they did an amniocentesis test on me. For any who don't know what that is, it involves a big needle going into my belly to withdraw some amniotic fluid, so that they can test it for a certain chemical which indicates that the baby's lungs are mature. Not a pleasant experience.

After they finished performing the amniocentesis, Sam left to go pick up his mom and LucyMae to run her to the doctor across the street from the hospital, because LucyMae had been quite sick for a few days. So while they were across the street finding out that LucyMae in fact had 2 pretty bad ear infections and was given an antibiotic, I was lying in the hospital room preparing myself mentally to have a c-section at noon. With me being 37 1/2 weeks along, there was a 97% chance that the lungs were mature and we would go through with it. Well....just as I had fallen into the rare 1% of pregnancies that have complete placenta previa, this little girl now fell into the 3% of babies whose lungs didn't appear to be mature at 37 1/2 weeks. The doctors said that the test results had been negative, and so we would wait another week and do the c-section then. While it was wonderful to know that she would get to cook a little longer and that we would decrease the chance of our baby going to the NICU, it was still rather disappointing to have been thinking that we would be meeting our little cherub that day and instead got sent home from the hospital with nothing. And now our baby would be born at 38 1/2 weeks, which is what I had wanted to do all along....I wish they would listen to the mom sometimes!

So...Sam's mom flew home again on Tuesday (luckily she was on a buddy pass, so it wasn't too hard/expensive....but still....). It was wonderful to have her here on Monday though, because it enabled Sam and I to go out to lunch and talk and blow off some steam from the whole situation, while she stayed home with LucyMae. THANK YOU CLAIR!

We were quite unprepared to spend Thanksgiving by ourselves (we had thought that Sam's mom would be here and not sure whether I would even be out of the hospital). But, some friends in our ward, the Porters, invited us to join up with them for their Thanksgiving feast. We brought Sam's wonderful orange rolls, my yummy sweet-potatoes with apples and cranberries, a green salad, and a peppermint ice cream pie. They did everything else....and it was delicious!!! Sadly, I totally forgot to take a single picture....so I guess we'll just have to remember what a great first Thanksgiving in Rapid City we had!

By the time we made it around to Monday, Nov. 30th, it had felt like the longest week of my life...just waiting and knowing that I was about to have a c-section. But the day did finally come, and we did survive. The Policky's, another family in our ward, were kind enough to watch LucyMae all day on Monday and most of the day Tuesday as well, until Sam's mom could get here again. It was hard and weird to drop LucyMae off, knowing that I wouldn't see her for at least 3 days, and that when I did see her again I wouldn't be able to pick her up (can't lift anything more than 10 pounds for 6 weeks after a c-section). Man, I love that girl!

OK...so onto the story of Samantha's birth: We got to the hospital at 10:00, got checked in and for the next 2 hours it was just monitoring the baby and me, hooking me up to IVs and drawing blood to test it, etc. Lots of needles. I have difficult veins or something, because I had to get poked at least twice both times I went to the hospital when they were trying to set up my IV. But at least this time they finally got a good one in that wasn't too uncomfortable. The doctor who performed the surgery was Dr. Ballard. He came in just before to give me the rundown and have me sign papers and stuff. He's a really nice guy, and a great doctor....but you gotta see this guy. He has a mullet, a fumanchu (sp?), and was wearing jeans and a leather jacket when he came in my room.....I mean, if I didn't know he was my doctor I would have thought he was creepy. But he has a good sense of humor and whenever I've met with him he's made me feel okay about everything.

The c-section was a very strange experience that I hope most women never have to go through. Just knowing that you are having a major surgery performed on you is kind of disturbing. Having the needle go in your spine that gives you the spinal block is never pleasant. The sensation of numbness that spreads over your body so quickly is disturbing and strange and makes you light-headed. And then there's a blue curtain hanging right in front of your face as you lay flat on your back with your feet slightly higher than your head and your arms tied down with towels out to the side of you. And on the other side of that blue curtain you know that YOU are the one getting cut open/operated on. You can't feel pain, but you can still feel that they're doing something disturbing to YOUR body. (Sam was right there by my side, holding my hand. He would stand up and look over the blue curtain to see what was happening, and then he would try to tell me....NO THANK YOU!!!! I do NOT want to know all the details of which intestine or layer of fat they are taking out now! So, I asked Sam to please keep that information to himself.) And then you get so sick of staring at the blue curtain and the lights above you, so you just close your eyes and try to pretend it's happening to somebody else. And then, a baby is letting out a little squak, and you're praying that the baby is ok, but at the same time you wonder whose baby it is.....because it somehow doesn't seem like it is your baby. You had no labor pains, you never exerted any effort in pushing, you can't see or feel anything that's happening to your body, and you can't even see the baby. Something is missing in the whole connection between mom and baby in this picture. The emotional attachment that results from the effort of giving birth naturally is absent. The cold you have been praying will go away all week suddenly reaches a little climax which makes it so you can't really breathe through your mouth or your nose and you wonder why the timing of these things is so set against you. You hear doctors and nurses saying things....but what? You just catch a word here and there and try to piece it all together. Baby is really screaming now, which is a good sign....right? Sam goes over to see the baby and take some pictures. They announce that she has red hair....maybe that is your baby...Finally Sam brings her over so you can see her, but for all the wanting in the world you couldn't have held her at that moment, let alone nursed her, because of the angle at which you are lying and the fact that your arms are tied down. All you can do is give her a kiss and look at her. Sam follows her to the nursery to do all the tests and stuff. And you just lay there while they put your body back together the best they can.

At one point Dr. Ballard peaks over the curtain to check in on me, and also informs me that unfortunately all my future babies will have to be born via c-section as well. WHAT??!!! Apparently they had to cut into my uterus up higher than they would have liked because of where the placenta was, and in doing so, they were cutting into the more muscular part of the uterus, which is more dangerous or something. Anyway, as they were pulling the baby out, my uterus tore a little bit, so that the scar on my uterus is now not just a straight incision, but a T-shaped incision. This bit of news at that moment was a little more than I could handle. So, I kind of put it in the back of my mind and ignored it for the moment. It was helpful that after that the conversation of the doctors became lighter and more humorous...it helped me to keep ignoring the bad news. At one point toward the end of the surgery Dr. Ballard blurts out that he loves operating on skinny patients. "You're skinny" he says. "How much did you weigh before you got pregnant?" So I tell him and then he says...."that's less than both my butt-cheeks!" I had to kind of laugh at that one.

After they finished up the surgery with a grand finale of staples in my body to hold the wound together, I got transferred to a hospital bed and wheeled into my recovery room. A nurse had to sit there with me for an hour or more just keeping tabs on my vitals. Finally Sam and the baby came in (about 30-40 minutes after the baby was actually born) and I was able to nurse her. Samantha latched right on and nursing has been going considerably well ever since. My nurse for the afternoon just happened to be a lady in our ward....which is totally comforting in that situation. AND the resident that helped Dr. Ballard with the surgery is in our ward too....kind of nice to have familiar faces from church all around you in a moment like that.

Recovery in the hospital wasn't too bad....Sam didn't get to stay with me the first night. He had to go home with LucyMae. It ended up being a long night, not only because of baby feedings and people constantly coming in to check my vitals, give me pills, etc. , but because my bladder was really having issues waking up from the spinal block. We did eventually get the problem solved though. But then the whole next day I would feel like passing out whenever I stood up....not encouraging to me! We finally figured out that it was the perkaset (sp?) drug they had me on. I had been feeling fine the evening before when I was still on the IV drug they had me on, but as soon as they switched me to the perkaset I was a wreck. So, we let that ware off and I started feeling reasonably good again.

Sam's mom flew in Tuesday evening and took care of LucyMae that night so that Sam could stay at the hospital with me. It was a much better night and I got to feeling much better by the next day, so we were discharged from the hospital Wednesday evening. From the time we checked into the hospital Monday morning until Wednesday night it was like winter had finally decided to really hit us. It was FREEZING outside and snowing. Kind of disturbing to take your tiny little newborn out into that kind of weather.

When we got home it was fun and interesting to see LucyMae's reaction to everything. Between me not being able to pick her up and showing her the new baby she was pretty overcome with emotions. She would be happy and jabbering one second, and then literally the next second she would be bawling. She was so cute about it all though. Since then, she has adjusted phenomenally well to this new little life in our home. She is super sweet and loving with Samantha, always wanting to give her kisses and see her hands and toes.

Having Sam's mom here for 10 days was an absolute life-saver. I don't know how we would have survived without her. Luckily I am feeling much more mobile and energetic now, so having her leave yesterday wasn't the end of the world. BUT, it is definitely a challenge without her since Sam is still working and in the middle of finals at school. Sam has been a pure champion through everything...through the whole pregnancy, and especially these past 2 weeks. How he is getting it all done, I don't know. He deserves best dad of the year award!

Since being home Samantha has gained back her birthweight plus some. She was 7 lbs. exactly at the doctor yesterday. This was great news because it made me stop worrying about my milk and if Samantha is getting enough. I have to wake her every 3 hours to feed her most of the time, and she is such a different nursing-style than LucyMae was, I have been a little worried. LucyMae was what they call a "baracuda" nurser, but Samantha is a "gourmet" "nip-and-napper". Feedings tend to take about an hour with her because she takes her time and has to take a nap between each breast. Funny little girl....but she is getting better. She has been an absolute angel with sleep though. She basically sleeps through the night...I just have to get up and feed her every 3-4 hours, and then she is back asleep until the next feeding. I am certainly blessed in that way. I think this little girl has a much more mellow personality than LucyMae...we'll see!

So, here are some more pictures for your enjoyment and a Christmas card will be coming soon! I PROMISE!!!




She's so little....

love that red hair....we're wondering if it's going to stay red though...




she loved her first bath


proud new parents!




getting ready to go home from the hospital

her going home outfit

this captures perfectly her emotions I think.

the 3 girls! Sam is totally outnumbered now.

LucyMae struggling to be happy

a little happier. We are actually a family of 4 now...WOW!