Carlee Joy
Well she finally arrived on Monday, November 10th at 1:48 pm! She weighed 8lbs 15oz and is 21″ long. The story is quite amazing and I’m not really sure even where to start. I’ll probably let Jenna detail out most of it, but I wanted to go ahead and post something to let you all know she was here.
The last two days have been hard, very hard, but also very joyous for us. The Lord has blessed us with an incredibly strong and persistent little girl of which I am so thankful, but the world has pressed back at us just as hard. I don’t plan on putting all the details here in writing because it is a very emotional thing for us and we are still processing it, but we are willing to share our story in person with our friends and family.
Monday morning Jenna started having labor pains and she knew it was going to be the day. We called her mom to get the kids and Erin the Midwife (who was on the way to Temple this time but immediately turned around!) and got things rolling. Our good friend Rachel came as well to assist with the birth because she’s a Bradley coach with home birth experience, and because Erin’s assistant couldn’t make it. Leaping forward several hours of labor, things got very intense at about 1pm. Jenna experienced some back labor because Carlee was presenting face first instead of head first. Her water finally broke at about 1:30 or so, and then a couple pushes later Carlee was here.
Carlee had some trouble breathing on her own at first. She wasn’t responding to all the things she should have been right away, so Erin gave her oxygen. Her body started pinking up but her face was still bluish gray so Erin asked Rachel to call 911, which Rachel Did. The EMS arrived and asked some questions about when this and when that, and long story short recommended we transport her to the hospital. At that point she was doing better but still blue in the face, so we decided to take her. I went to the hospital with Carlee while Rachel and Erin stayed back to take care of Jenna and deliver the placenta.
We arrived to the hospital and took her into the NICU where we met the doctor and nurses that would take care of her. They asked many question about the homebirth, etc, but it generally appeared that she was doing very well. They also said that the blue in the face was actually bruising from her trying to come out face first. I was relieved at this point to know that all her levels and rates were checking out OK and so I was excited that we should be able to take her back home soon. Jenna arrived about an hour after she was born (after Erin finding a parking place) to feed her and at that point we started expressing our desires to take her back home.
Fast forward 5 hours… we had been talking with 2 different doctors in a bit of a “holding cell” trying to convince them that since all of their tests so far have checked out OK and that we did not wish to stay at the hospital any longer. One of the many reasons we decided to have a home birth in the first place…
Many hours later we consented to stay but we wanted to leave at lunchtime on Tuesday. The stay was uncomfortable of course, but we did get to keep Carlee with us the entire time. Tuesday night at 6:30pm we finally drove home.
There are more details to fill in of course, but we wish not to post them here, for now at least. Carlee is a long baby and has full head of thick auburn colored hair. We thank the Lord for blessing us with her and keeping her and Jenna both safe through all of this. If you were wondering, we don’t regret the home birth thing at all… we loved all of it. We were very comfortable at home and Jenna was able to birth Carlee the way we wanted. Even though Carlee was a big baby, she had no tearing and very minimal swelling. (Most of her swelling was due to sitting in a chair talking to doctors for many hours with no Tylenol and no ice for relief.) It is unfortunate that the hospital and the people at the hospital just couldn’t understand our birth philosophy and frowned on us for the decisions we made all throughout the day.
I want to share a Scripture that inspired us from the moment of her birth and will probably continue for quite a while. While the Scripture is not her middle-name-sake, it did seem fitting.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. James 1:2-6
Thanks to the many who prayed for us during this time. We witnessed many miracles that the Lord did the past few days. We apologize to any friends we haven’t talked to yet, but we hope you understand that we were (and still are) exhausted both physically and emotionally.
19 comments November 12th, 2008