Henna's Birth Story

I said I'd get to writing this out, and I need to, before the memory starts to fade away.

I had a doctor's appointment on December 1, 2011 @ 10:15AM. (I was even awake early, at 8AM, anticipating that I may be in the hospital later that evening, I was cleaning things) At that point in time, I was 40 weeks, 1 day. I had gone naturally with Lexi at 38 weeks, arriving at the hospital already 6cm and not even knowing it. Total labor (that I know of), 16 hours. With Lilly, I had my membranes stripped at 39 weeks and went into labor that evening. Total labor, 12 hours. With Avery on the other hand, we waited and waited, and at 41 weeks, we got an induction. Her induction started by breaking my water and starting pitocin at the same time. Total labor, 4 hours. Avery was only a half ounce shy of being 9 pounds,and my placenta had shown signs of being overdue, so my doctor agreed with an induction at 40 weeks with Henna. She had an induction scheduled already at Dunlap (we had delivered the other 3 in Wooster), so we decided we would meet at Dunlap at 5PM and just break my water and see what happened.

So about a 5:45PM on December 1st, my water was broken, and I awaited labor. Start problem #1... Henna was not dropped down in the uterus very well, even after breaking the water, so I wasn't allowed to move from that hospital bed. They feared she may drop on her umbilical cord if I got up and moved, so I even had to use a bedpan. Labor never did come, despite having some contractions off and on throughout the night. We didn't get a wink of sleep. I was so uncomfortable not being able to move out of that bed. I had wanted to try their water birth tubs, but that wasn't gonna happen (and I found out that you can't even get in them when you have pitocin running, which I didn't know at the beginning). We watched some horrible Sci-Fi stuff and then National Treasure 2 throughout the night.

At about 4:30AM on December 2nd, pitocin was started, and I was actually told I could move around slightly. Start problem #2...Henna's heart rate dropped VERY low with every contraction. This went on for a few hours, despite adjusting the pitocin all over the place and even stopping it, and the talk of a C-Section became a very real option. After being up for 24 hours, facing a C-Section, and in some lovely pitocin induced pain for over 4 hours, somewhere around 8:30AM-9AM, I received my very first epidural. My doctor even said that I was one that did not complain, (I had 3 kids already...) and she couldn't believe how this was all turning out.

Start problem #3...the epidural partially failed. It seemed to work OK on my left side, but not my right side, so now I'm thinking they are gonna have to knock me out for a C-Section, because how in the world is a spinal going to work if the epidural didn't? While the epidural doc screwed around with settings and gave me the option of redoing it (one needle to the back is enough, thankyouverymuch!), my doctor decided to do that amniofusion thing where they circulate water back through the uterus, hoping it would even out her heart rate.

Amazingly enough, this worked! She evened out. Eventually I got to the point where the music had changed, and we knew we must be close to the pushing phase. So in about 2 minutes with 3 or 4 pushes, Henna Orion Cowgar was born on December 2nd, 2011 @ 12:21PM. She was 7lbs, 15oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She was perfectly healthy. She didn't really have a cone head since she hadn't been sucked down very long, she had tons of fuzzy hair everywhere, and very long fingers! My placenta on the other hand, wasn't so graceful. I believe the doctor actually sent it to the lab for tests. That thing was old! I'm glad we didn't wait as long as we did with Avery. That could have posed a greater threat to Henna if we had. And believe it or not, she was smaller than not only Avery, but Lilly also!!

This was certainly the farthest thing from the birth experience I was hoping for, and I get a little sad when I think of how this went since she is our last, but we both made it, which is a lot to say! My only regret is that stupid epidural. I should of just had them pull the thing out when it didn't work right, because my left leg was swollen up for days after, and my back twinged for about a week after she was born, right where they had put that needle in. That darn thing was useless. I made it through 4 hours of intense pitocin contractions with Avery, and what I felt with that epidural was just as bad as those were, so I could have just saved the insurance some money and not gotten the thing if the big C-Section word hadn't been thrown around so much. My doctor even said, if I had been in Wooster, I probably would have ended up with one, because she would have been going between Wooster and Orrville with her other induction as well.

I will also note, that the horrible sci-fi movies had ended long ago, and Mr. Mike Rowe and the Dirty Jobs crew got to be a part of my birthing experience this time:)

In the end, we ended up with our fourth little princess, and the other 3 absolutely adore her:)

Oh My...

Have I really not written anything here since July!?!?!?!?

Well, the most important thing since then has been that baby Henna Orion arrived on December 2nd!!! I will write out a birth story with pictures a little later.

I guess my New Year's Resolution will be to keep up on the blog more. We are thinking of updating our phone service to the data package and getting smart phones. I imagine if that's the case, I will be posting a ton more photos.

In the meantime, know that I haven't forgotten about the blog, but that life just got in the way of letting me share our adventures...

I'm a slacker...

I have no idea how to post pictures myself, therefore I depend upon Luke, and he has been crazy busy with weddings this summer, that it just hasn't happened. Maybe this weekend I will actually let him teach me, that way I can put up vacation pictures from our trip to Florida for his cousin's wedding.

The girls have been doing great in karate, and have their yellow belt already! Lexi has learned a few versions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano, and we need to go buy her a couple note reading books so she can start learning to read music.

Avery is getting bigger by the minute and starting to finally talk a little bit. The biggest word she says...."Spongebob" :)

I'm doing pretty well. Just turned 27, and I'm about 21-22 weeks along with baby girl number 4! I don't have to go back to work until next week, and we just bought an air conditioner for the living room, so I am hoping to work on organizing all the stuff that came out of the bedrooms. I'm sure I have a lot of yardsale stuff, so I should probably have another yardsale soon. We've gotta come up with some money to pay some things off so we can afford to take on a car payment, since we will need to upgrade when the new baby comes...

Extracurricular Activities

We've gotten to the age group that Lexi and Lilly are big enough to start doing some things... Since Lexi just turned 5, we started piano lessons with a lady through the Wayne Center for the Arts. We go on Wednesday afternoons to her home for a half hour lesson. We have had one so far, and Lexi did really well. We went to Larry's and got her a book and CD and she has been practicing at home and doing pretty good. Lilly may even pick a little bit up before she turns 5 and can start.

We also started karate and Tracy's Studio here in town. The owner is awesome, and the girls enjoy it a lot. Ages start at 4, and since Lilly will be 4 next month, they let her start so it's something they can do together. We go Tuesday evenings for the group lesson, which is them and 4 boys, and then we go on Wednesday mornings for their private lesson. They do really well, and we have a list of stuff they get to do for their first belt, a yellow belt. They should have their uniforms in a few weeks. So exciting!!

Cat Bites!!

So, we've spent some time at Dad's lately, due to a neighbour unexpectedly falling ill and passing away. He has a grumpy old black cat named Sisko (after the captain on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, not that Thong Song guy that Chelsea always thinks of!!) Anyway, we think he was in the bathtub drinking water and Lilly tried to pet him, and of course he bit her. She has one little hole in her arm right above her left wrist. This happened Tuesday, and we've been treating it with peroxide and neosporin, but yesterday we called the pediatrician because it turned red and puffy. They saw her yesterday and did an antibiotic by injection. She had to get one in each leg, and he said that it would hurt really bad, causing burning and tingling and that she wouldn't be able to walk hardly. Poor Lilly had never been so scared. Just last month she saw Lexi get a shot, and even though Lexi did awesome, Lilly has been talking about shots and that she doesn't want one, so yesterday was tough. I ended up being an hour and a half late to work since the appointment was so late in the day and we had to wait around to make sure she didn't have a reaction to the shots.

She goes back today at 2:45. The redness has gone down, so she probably won't need another round of shots, just an oral antibiotic from here!

Just an FYI, the pediatrician said as far as animal bites go. If it's a cat, always bring them in, because their teeth are so long that the bite goes deep enough that oxygen can't get to the wound to heal it. A dog bite on the other hand, unless it requires stitches, would be just fine to treat at home, and the risk of infection is low...

A birthday and more kitchen destruction

We had a friend turn 4 last week, and they had his party at a McDonald's with a play place. I have to say, it gives me a little bit of anxiety to let them play there. We don't do McDonald's except when we meet Nana and Papaw, and that one doesn't have toys. It's just a sticky, icky place. The girls had a blast though!!


The kitchen is still in progress. I am hoping to send Luke to Lowe's today to pick up two cabinets, and then we can get those up, and the rest of the tile board that goes behind the countertop, and then hopefully we can get mud on the walls so we can paint the rest of it sometime this month!!

Kitchen Re-Modeling

We had finally put up drywall in the pantry before Lexi's party, and now it's time to finish it up. I always thought the kitchen would be last on the list of house re-models, but I believe it is the reason we eat out more than we should, and eat unhealthier meals. We need a good space to prepare food, and the old kitchen didn't offer that to us. Since we are cash flowing the project, we won't have everything we need to finish it this weekend(like two cabinets and the OTR Microwave), but we will have the soffet done, paint on the walls, shelving in the pantry, and the tile board up. It will be enough that the groceries will fit on the shelves, and we can easily take inventory of what we have. The floor will also stay unfinished, but really, I don't care about that floor anyway. We will get there one day!