I have been preparing myself for the birth of our 2nd daughter for a while now. This is very uncharacteristic of me. Normally I deal with big or stressful events in my life by ignoring them as long as I can and then when I can't put it off any longer I take care of whatever needs doing in a whirlwind of activity. While the 'head in the sand' approach to life seems to work well for me in many situations I decided it was not the best approach to having a second child. Therefore, several weeks ago I began preparing for this little girl by focusing on getting my house in order. This mainly meant cleaning and organizing the house and trying to cook and freeze meals. I made a checklist of activities that had to be accomplished each week and stuck to it. I was on schedule and my house was cleaner than it had been since we moved in. I was feeling very ready for the baby to come and was really wanting her to come miraculously early and healthy. I even prayed for this very hard. I am not a person that is ever very prepared for change and I thought that, for once in my life, I was. Well, I prayed and prayed that the baby would come early and just couldn't bring myself to say "thy will be done" to Heavenly Father. That is when disaster struck.
On Tuesday morning, the week before Thanksgiving (when I was hoping the baby would come and when James' family was coming out for the holiday) I was doing laundry. Unfortunately the laundry machine had become undone where the water is pumped out of the machine. I did a large load of whites and went upstairs. When I returned about an hour later, it was to find the basement covered in water. The carpet was soaked and the laundry room was filled in some spots to about 2 inches deep in water. The comfort that I take in this was that it was soapy bleach water and not the sewer. :)
I called James and he hurried home to help me vacuum out all the water and tear up the carpet which was soaked through the hallway to the stairs and into the bedroom (basically our entire basement). We decided that the carpet really wasn't worth trying to save and we didn't want to run the risk of mildew or mold. After the carpet was up we ran to Home Depot to order new carpet because we had family that was planning on staying at our house the next week and we wanted that to be possible. However, as we got home we looked around our basement and realized that now was a good time to change the layout to what we wanted it to be before we put down new carpet.
Therefore the giant project began. We knocked down walls and a flimsy closet with the help of my handy sister April. Then James decided that since the carpet was up and before the new carpet went down we should fix the electrical in the basement and also put in recessed lights which would be a mess because it required tearing out the lath and plaster ceiling. And, while we were improving the ceiling it didn't make sense not to fix some of the vents so that they ran up in the joists rather than encroaching down on our already short room. In short, our house exploded. All of the furniture from the basement was moved upstairs and had to stay up there a while. Then James began the very dirty and dusty job of tearing out the ceiling and grinding out parts of the concrete walls to embed electrical outlets into the walls. This was very very dusty work which turned my clean and well dusted house into a grimy mess. Even though Lanie and I stayed upstairs and the vents were covered, the dust still came up so that by the end of the day there was a thick coat of it on everything and one's teeth felt gritty. What an event to have occur two weeks before having a baby!
James took several days off of work to work on the basement and has accomplished so much and the guys in the family helped a lot in the basement during Thanksgiving break to help out. We are so grateful for that. But there is still plenty to go. We plan on skim coating the walls to make a uniform texture and then we can sand and paint and get the carpet and baseboards in. Hopefully we can finish the basement sooner than later.
I think the flooding of the basement and turning of the house upside down was perhaps a way for Heavenly Father to teach me that really it would be 'His will be done' because by the end of the mess I found myself being ok with the fact that baby Gwen wasn't coming early on her own. In fact, it was maybe a kind way for Heavenly Father to teach this because I didn't feel horribly disappointed when Gwen didn't come on the 19th or 20th like I had hoped. Whereas, I would have been sorely disheartened if my house had been completely in order and she still didn't arrive. With the basement in a mess I had something to keep me pre-occupied while the days of waiting came and went.
Sunday the 20th we celebrated Lanie's 2nd birthday early with my family. It was so fun and my family spoiled her with tons of presents. We made a simple dinner and Brooke and Joy made Lanie a cake and just kept everything casual because I didn't want to worry about having too big a party with the mess in the house and a baby coming soon. I think Lanie still enjoyed it.
On Tuesday, James' family came into town and we enjoyed their company for Thanksgiving break. Everyone was here and we had a great dinner. Wednesday we all cooked and baked and prepped as much food as we could before hand, and then spent part of Thursday finishing up. Dinner was wonderful and beautiful. Jenn had beautiful place settings and we made a pretty center piece using leaf garlands and candles. That morning I went on a 3.5 mile walk up and down the steep hills by the temple in hopes that the activity would help the baby to come but nothing happened during the day. Then that evening James and I went for the same walk again for about 4 miles. (this worked last time with Lanie on Thanksgiving, but no such luck with Gwen).
The rest of the weekend went well and we enjoyed spending time with the Speirs family. Sunday the 27th, was Lanie's real birthday and again she was spoiled. Grandma Speirs had bought her a princess cake which she of course Loved! Then everyone spoiled her with presents. Each time she opened a present she would say it was "tute," translation: cute. This little girl, between the two families is going to be a very well dressed, well entertained, child.
Sunday night I had trouble sleeping because I knew that I was going to be induced the next day. I was worried that the induction would be harder than labor or that for some reason the hospital would become very busy and they would have to put off my induction. I finally fell asleep at about 1:30am and tossed and turned all night. I had become so big that it was getting hard to sleep through the night comfortably anyway. I woke up at 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. Thinking that I wouldn't be called to come into the hospital until the late morning (the nurse told me the day before to wait to call them at 10 am if I didn't hear from them sooner) I tried to fall back to sleep. Suddenly at 6:20 I got a call from the hospital telling me to be there by 7am. James and I leapt out of bed and scrambled to get ready and showered because it is a 20 minute drive.
We woke up Lanie to say goodbye and took a quick family picture. James' parents came over from the motel they were staying at and Jacob and Rachel all said their goodbyes and helped us get out the door. James and I made it to the hospital by 7:20 and the induction was all started by 8 o'clock with the doctor breaking my water soon thereafter.
What a fantastic thing the induction was. It was so calm and relaxed and when things started to get uncomfortable I asked for my epidural and all went so well. I did take a little while to dilate from the 2 that I started at to a 4 but then the RN checked me and kind of moved Gwen a little and lots of fluid which had been keeping Gwen from fully engaging in my pelvis came and suddenly she was engaged and I was dilated to a 5.5. (Lots of amniotic fluid had also kept Lanie from engaging and contributed to a somewhat longer labor too). Once Gwen was engaged I dilated in about an hour and a half and was ready to push. I had such an effective epidural that I had been able to rest this whole time, watch Elf with James and catch little snippets of sleep. Really, the experience was like a wonderfully exciting and somewhat relaxed date. What a great way to spend time with one's spouse right before having a baby.The only time Gwen or I had some trouble was after I was dilated to a 5, there were some late decelerations for Gwen and they did put in an internal monitor to watch the strength of my contractions and I was placed on my left side to see if changing positions would help the baby's head or cord not be too compressed. This did mean that I felt the contractions more on my right side and was a bit uncomfortable, but it didn't last too long.
Soon it was time to push and the nurse quickly got the doctor. As soon as he arrived they prepped me for pushing and I mentally prepared myself for a long episode of pushing (with Lanie I pushed for what seemed like a total of 2 hours). I thought it would be the same way again for some reason. However, I gave one push and they could see the top of Gwen's head, then I gave another and they could see past her eyes. Then I gave one more and she was out! It was amazing! The umbilical cord was very short and they couldn't put Gwen up on my abdomen, but everything looked ok. As soon as they got the cord cut, she was up on my chest and so cute. I was amazed by the size of her cheeks and the rolls on her arms. Everyone thought she must have been a big baby because her cheeks were so filled out but it turns out she was only 8 lbs 3 oz and 18.5 inches long. She was born at 1:39 in the afternoon. Gwen hardly cried, and I mean, hardly cried but her apgar scores were still good at 8 and 9.
The whole experience was very lovely. I thought that I would be sad that I was being induced and wouldn't be laboring at home for the first part, like I did with Lanie, but actually, I had a wonderful experience in the hospital. James and I enjoyed each other's company and enjoyed the anticipation of the arrival of our baby. I almost preferred this experience because it was so calm and relaxing and I got to enjoy it with James. With Lanie I was up most of the night just walking around trying to get comfortable until the time came that I should wake James up and go to the hospital. It wouldn't have done much good to make James stay up with me and be tired for the delivery too.
Well, my stay at the hospital has been very good. Gwen has cried about 2 times total these last two days and has done great. We will get to go home where Grandma Birdie is taking care of Lanie and will be with us for the rest of the week. We are very grateful she is able to be with us and help us so much.
P.S. (written Sunday, January 15, 2012). This time with Gwen at home has been wonderful. I can't help but keep thinking that having a baby in the home is a little bit of Heaven on Earth. I'm so grateful for my two girls and for all that James does for our little family.
