My Stephanie

 

This is my Stephanie girlie, the picture was taken the day she came home from the hospital.  At birth she weighed 11 pounds 4 1/2 ounces and was 22 3/4 inches long. 

 

I don't think any of my children came into the world without a little drama to spice things up.  When it was early in my pregnancy, three or four months in I started to have problems so I went in to see my doctor. I was hospitalized off and on during the pregnancy to keep a check on her but with the blood loss I experienced they were not sure how it would affect the baby in the end.  They worried that the baby may be deformed or even have mental deficiencies.  Thank heaven neither happened.  It was long enough ago that there were no tests to check for those kinds of things and it would not have mattered anyway.  This was my baby and I intended to have it no matter the circumstances and raise it.  I did not even know the gender of the child, in fact I was sure I was carrying a boy, lol. 

I was so miserable at about eight months, I was so huge.  I couldn't breathe, sleep, move, it was horrible.  I went in to the doctor and was crying, which is something I just don't do.  I told him that I had baby from my knees to my boobs, that this baby was huge!  He had me lay on the exam table and measured my tummy like they always do/did and he squeezed my tummy a bit with his hands and said, "Mrs. Helms I don't think this baby is more than six pounds right now, I don't think it will be any more than seven or eight pounds when it's born.  I just burst out in tears and asked him, "what? You have weights and scales in your fingers?"  I told him he was wrong I was carrying a baby whale (sorry Steph but that IS what I said to him, you say crazy things when you are pregnant).  He helped me down from the table and wrote in my chart that I was an hysterical woman.  I know that because he later, after Stephanie was born, showed it to me then apologized and took it out of the chart.

So as the last month of my pregnancy progressed I felt like I was going to explode.  It was getting to the point that it was painful to breathe and I was begging the doctor to induce me or take the baby by c-section, but he would not even listen to me.  The last month passes with me walking (waddling) painful miles upon miles trying to bring labor on but it didn't work.  Robin and Brent enjoy the walks however so it was worth getting out of the house. 

The day she was born was the day I decide to make home made cinnamon rolls, the kind that take 8 hours, with yeast that has to rise twice.  I started into labor half way through the process of making the rolls I was determined I was NOT going to lose those cinnamon rolls so I refused to go to the hospital until those cinnamon rolls were completed and sitting beautifully on the counter. 

We had our babysitter, Michelle, so off we went to have our baby.  Only 16 hours of labor that time and it was a God send.  I thought I was in Heaven.  Here's  pretty much how it went.  I went in to the hospital and was in labor so they gave me a room and I labored quite well.  They broke my water so the baby could come and of course I labored harder.  It wasn't long before it was time to push so we were off to the delivery room. 

Now, you know how when you have a new baby they caution you to be so careful to hold the head and to be careful to support the neck because it is so fragile.  I support that 100%, I would NEVER argue with that at all but this was my experience:  While trying to deliver Stephanie her shoulder got caught on my cervical bone and could not get around it so the doctor grabbed her head with both of his hands and pulled it so hard his whole upper body including his arms and hands were trembling with the strength of his pulling.  I know this because I saw him doing it.  In the midst of his powerful pull everyone in the room, including me, heard a loud "pop" and then my daughter slipped right out.  I let out a kind of cry because quite frankly I though he had broken her neck.  The nurses whisked her over to the isolet to check her out while the doctor finished with me.  I continued to ask if she was alright and FINALLY a nurse brought her over to me and explained the "pop" was not her neck but the doctor had actually broken her collar bone with his pulling but it had freed her and allowed her to be delivered.  It had caused a HUGE hematoma that was like a miniature hunch back on her.  They handed her to me on a pillow.  We had to carry her on a pillow for six weeks.  They told me to sew up the sleeve of her little t-shirts and not put her arm through so the t-shirt would hug that arm to her body for the healing process, so I did for six weeks.  Bless her little innocent heart.  It could have just as easily been her neck, thank heaven it wasn't.  Her collar bone healed perfectly. 

After the doctor delivered Stephanie and they weighed her in at 11pounds 4 1/2 ounces he did apologize for not believing me about how large she was becoming and said if he had realized he would have put me into labor earlier.  Really? Ya think?  Perhaps he listened to the next woman that said that she was carrying a baby whale. 

In the end I got my perfect little girlie, who, by the way, slept through the night from the first day she came home from the hospital and until this day.