Our precious baby girl has arrived! Lillian Joyce Crowe was born on January 4th and we feel blessed beyond words!!!
Obviously I am a little late updating my blog, as I started this post about 3 months ago. But Lillian came quickly into this world and has been keeping us busy ever since! She waited until we had installed the car seat, had a last dinner and movie date, and taken a pregnancy photo in front of our Christmas decorations all on the night before I went into labor. I felt back pain around 1am and again in another hour or so, and I hadn't had any during the pregnancy so I knew something was up. I ended up just getting out of bed and getting things done because I knew that it could be the day that our world would change. I cleaned up the house, packed up all the last little things in our hospital bags and even baked cookies for the nurses at 4am! I started to lay back down hoping I could go back to sleep, but hurried to the bathroom seconds later as my water broke at 7:30am. I got in the shower and Jason woke up, knowing that something was going on for me to be up before he was. I just told him its time to go to the hospital! We got there around 8:30 and they said I was dilated only to a 3 around 9:30am but the contractions were getting painful. We got out stuff in our recovery room then slowly made our way up to the delivery room as the contractions got really bad and were coming every 5 minutes or so. I was asking for an epidural but they were slow getting everything set up. By the time my IV was put in, I was at 7cm and my doctor didn't recommend it after that. Therefore, I listened to the Nigerian midwife, Dorothy, that said I could do this and "push like a strong African woman!" So I did (with a just little help from some pethidine dripped into the IV) and my baby girl made her appearance at 12:50pm. Again I think she planned it all out as this was the time we were scheduled to come see the doctor that day for my weekly checkup. She was only 3 days early and was a healthy 3.52kg and 52 cm (approx. 7lbs 12oz and 21.25 inches). She cried right away and then settled as they put her directly on my chest. I couldn't see her face but she got to look at her daddy as I held her tight. It was such a relief for her to finally be here and I couldn't have been happier! The pediatrician checked her out right away and then I breastfed her before she got her first vaccinations and then we headed back to our recovery room for a much needed nap!
My doctor was amazing and I could not have asked for a better experience with her. She was an American and actually did her residency at Baylor Medical Center in Houston! We had an interesting first night in the hospital trying to figure out the cries of our newborn but she did let us get some sleep. They performed the newborn screening test after 24 hours of her birth and then she was released to go home. My doctor wanted to come check on me around 5pm that next day but I was released after that so we headed home after just one night in the hospital. I was so ready to get into our own bed and hopefully get some better sleep so I was excited to bring Lillian to her new home.
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| less than 24 hours before her birth! |
