Bickel Family Blog: The Arrival

Miss Lily is 2 weeks old now, and I have my life together enough to be able to share her arrival story. I went into the doctor the day before her date and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was already 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced. That was much further than I had ever been with Luke prior to my induction. Knowing that she wasn’t going to be on time (I just knew) we scheduled an induction for Saturday, August 25th at 1:30 pm.

On Saturday morning, I started calling the hospital to see if there was a room for me so I could go in and have this baby! Alas, they were overbooked and understaffed, so they asked me to call back at noon. And then when I called back at noon, they told me to call back at 5 pm. While I was spending my afternoon calling, I also started having contractions. This wasn’t the first time during this pregnancy, I had contractions earlier in the week and the week before, but had never progressed.

This time, they were progressing quickly, and I thought my water might have broken. I called the hospital around 4:30 and they told me to come on in. I arrived at the hospital at 5, was checked and admitted and into my room by 5:30 pm. While I was in observation, a nurse came in to tell me that he had called my cell phone to tell me there still wasn’t a room for me for an induction. He told me to ignore the message, since, you know, I was having a baby and all.

I progressed quickly and was asked if I wanted an epidural. I had originally wanted to go without pain meds, as that had been my goal with Luke as well. I reflected on my first delivery experience, I remembered how I hadn’t progressed and both Luke and my blood pressure plummeted. I remembered being given the choice of an epidural and a c-section. Knowing this, I didn’t want to get to that point again with Lily, so I took the epidural.

The epidural worked quickly and I couldn’t feel a thing. Score! Before I knew it, the nurse told me it was time to have this baby as I zipped right along to full dilation. She brought the doctors in quickly, as they had just delivered another baby.

I still couldn’t feel a thing at this point and when the nurse informed me to push during contractions, I told her she was going to need to tell me when those were. 4 minutes of pushing, and Lily Grace was born. Apparently, she was sunny-side up and as she came out, she twisted herself out like a little corkscrew, which reduced my tearing. Good job, Lily!

The nurses flopped her on my chest and of course I cried and cried. I was so happy to have my sweet little girl. The doctors rushed out to go deliver another baby. We had some time to enjoy skin-to-skin contact for a bit and then the nurses asked if they could take her to clean her up and weigh her. As they took her, Lily’s foot hit me in the face (thanks) and I realized she left behind a present. She pooped ALL over me. Now, we’re not talking a little poop, we are talking a HUGE GIANT impressive, shock-the-nurses kind of poop. It takes a lot to surprise labor/delivery nurses. They just kept saying, “I have never seen a newborn poop that much!” As I still had no feeling from my waist down, I was stripped down to nothing and had all the poop cleaned up off of me. Bleh.

Our L/D nurse made a sweet little bow for her hat and we took a ton of pictures. She immediately latched on and started nursing, which was an improvement over Luke.

Isn’t she pretty??

Todd was so glad Lily had a round head. Apparently, when you push for 4 minutes verses 1 hr and 15 minutes, you get a better shaped, less “alien-like” head.

3 generations