Its been two weeks since our little girl Alejandra Joy was born and I honestly don’t know where the time has gone. Can it stop already please?
If you’ve been following my journey with pregnancy you know that I had originally planned to give birth naturally at a birthing center. However, after an ultrasound at 36 weeks showed Allie to be in less than the 5th percentile in weight (about 4.5 lb), with a fluid sac by her heart, all of our plans went down the drain. On top of this, they discovered she was breech. Because of the uncertainty with her health, I was transferred from the care of midwives to the care of the birth centers referring physician. He offered the option of an external cephalic version to try and flip Allie, of which my husband and I initially declined due to not knowing how strong she was and if we wanted to add additional factors that could negatively effect her health. Yet after another extensive ultrasound, it was determined by my 38th week check up that Allie was no longer considered IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction), and the fluid sac had disappeared, all of which put birth at the birth center back on the table. However, with no success at getting her to flip using natural methods (spinning babies, acupuncture, chiropractor, moxibustion, etc…), we decided it was time to make a plan.
Our Birth Story
On May 20th at 1:30 PM my husband and I loaded up the car and set out to meet our baby girl. The plan was to proceed with the ECV, and depending on its outcome, the nurses would either induce me or I would go in for a c-section. After a few attempts at getting her to flip, and an incredibly amount of anesthesia, it was clear she wasn’t going to flip and I got wheeled into the OR for a c-section. After another huge dose of anesthesia (at this point the nurses said I’d had 2-3 amount of a normal c-section, which was fun coming out of to say the least), our baby girl arrived screaming at 6PM on the dot. She weighed 6 lb and 7 oz, measuring 19 inches long.
The joy and relief I felt to finally have her safe in my arms was incredibly overwhelming. I still get choked up with the gratefulness I feel to finally have her here with us despite all of the odds stacked against both of us. When I look at her I’m reminded of all the times I sat and wondered if I’d ever be able to have kids of my own, all the times I was left feeling hopeless and defeated by my body, and all the moments my husband and I prayed that for our sweet little girl. Between all the bittersweet memories and hormones, I’m not ashamed to say I’ve found myself breaking down in tears from sheer joy and thankfulness many times in the past 14 days. Life truly is an amazing thing.
Moving Forward
Though she passed all of her tests with flying colors, I did have the doctor take a piece of my placenta for further testing. The kit I ordered was through Igenex, which will test my placenta for any signs of a Lyme infection. This will give us a better understanding if anything tried to reach baby girl and if we should proceed with further testing to rule any possibilities out. The test results are still undetermined, but will be interpreted by my functional medicine doctor when they come in.
As far as my recovery goes, I’m doing a lot better at the two week point then I thought I would be. it definitely helps that I’ve had major abdominal surgery before (release of compressed celiac artery), as it’s helped a great deal in my approach to recovery. At the hospital I welcomed all of the heavy IV pain killers, but once that was removed and I was switched to oral meds, I did my best to get off them as quick as possible. By day 8 I was off all Motrin completely and haven’t taken anything since. The hardest part of it all was trying to move around with such burning pain in my abdomen. But two weeks later Im happy to say my pain has decreased (thought not gone) and my stamina for being on my feet has slowly increased. There is still quite a bit of swelling and tenderness around my incision, but overall I’m pleased with how my body is recovering and doing as a whole.
For more information on my journey with chronic Lyme and pregnancy, be sure to check out my videos and blogposts here.
Psalm 50:11 “”I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine.”
[…] were slim to none, and it was as if my body knew what it was doing this second time around. While my first was born a c-section due to being in a breeched position, I chose to go the route of a midwife and […]