Pictures of Harmony Grace

Harmony Grace Smith

Well you have probably been wondering where I have been? Well, I have been having a baby.
I guess I can say it all started last Wednesday evening/ early Thursday morning. I was having contractions all night and they were 5-7 minutes apart but not intense at all. So Thursday I wake up and get ready for my midwife appointment that morning. I finished packing my bag because I KNEW I was going to have the baby that day... I got to the midwife that morning and told her about the contractions and then she took my blood pressure. When she was done taking it she calmly told me that I need to get to the Hospital soon so they could run a bio-physical and a stress test on me, and then she told me to make sure I have my things because she is going to admit me. So I didnt get freaked out, I just got really excited. We take care of a few things that we needed to take care of and then we head off to the hospital. One of the things that we SHOULD have taken care of was eating lunch. The only thing I ate that morning was a bowl of raisin bran. I get to the Hospital and go into our room and I get dressed and get on the bed and they start to do all of the stuff that they do, like put the monitor on me. The ultra sound machine comes in a few minutes later and they start to check the size of the baby and what not. Then after about 5 minutes they start to freak out a little but because they can not find her head. Me personally I know for a fact she does have a head so I stayed pretty calm until the nurse puts the device on my upper stomach and says "Theres her head, shes Breech".. I was totally thrown off guard. I just froze and could not even move or speak. After a few minutes I regained the feeling in my body and proceeded to ball. Unfortunately I could not spend a lot of time crying I had to go for a nice little ride down to the Ultra Sound room so they could do the bio-physical. So I went thru 30 minuets of not only intense contractions but the tech making me move from one side to another for 30 minutes. So that was finally done and I was on my way back upstairs. Now this whole time I am praying that she just moves and turns and go back to head down. I knew it could be done considering just the week before she head down and ready to go. Ok so anyway, we sit and wait for my midwife to come back in and talk to me and well, I really wasn't looking forward to hearing what she had to say. So after waiting we finally talk to her and she tells me that I HAVE to have a C-Section. There is really no way around it. We can not turn the baby due to my blood pressure being so high, he fibroids that are right next to the sack, the fact the my water had been leaking, so there is not enough fluid in there and the fact that they said she was 9 1/2 lbs, well it didnt make for a safe "turn" . So after the midwife came in and talked to me now it was time for the Doctor to. She did tell me that because the fact that I haven't eaten since 9 that morning, she was going to do the surgery that night. So we all waited around and talked and prayed and balled, ok I balled (what a great way to bond with your friends) then at about 9 - 10 PM they come in to tell me that I have been bumped by an emergency C Section of twins and now I can eat, get a good night sleep and they will deliver me at 7:30AM. Well, I wish I could say I got a good night sleep but it was AWFUL... I could barely sleep and I was still having contractions. Well at about 3:45 AM I feel this large movement and then I felt wet. I get up and ring the nurse and she comes in to check me and to an ultra sound real quick. Well, sure enough she had moved, but she was now transverse (side to side instead of up and down) so she was trying to go head down. I decided since they had to prep for surgery starting at 5:30 AM I would get in the shower and get ready. Which I did and I am so thankful that I was able to do that. By 5:30 AM when they did the next U/S she was back breech so they proceeded with the preparation. I will save you all of those details dont worry. Well they wheeled me back to the OR at 7:30AM and Harmony Grace Smith was born at 7:52 AM and she weighed 8lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long.
This is about all I can write for now due to all of the pain killers and anti-biotics that I am on at the moment. I will post pics in another blog. Please keep my family in your prayers in the next few weeks of this recovery process. Alot of you have already offered to help in anyway and normally I would tell you I am good and I dont need any help, but I will not be stubborn anymore.

please check out this blog

This really touched me today and I know some of us have been where she is. Please take time to read this blog. Check it out here

my 39 week appointment

was yesterday and I think it went very well. My midwife is so full of knowledge and she makes things make sense. LOL Some Drs. try and answer your questions but the do it in terms that you can not understand, but midwives are just so different.

I gained 4 pounds in 6 days, and she wanted to know if I wanted to be checked and I was so happy to say yes. The reason I have really been wanting to get checked is because I have been having so many Braxton Hicks along with some good contractions so I knew for sure that I had to be at lease 2 or 3 cm dilated. Well, I was only 1cm and 50% effaced and a -2 station. So needless to say I was a little disappointed. I know its progress but I thought I would be a lot further along. Well, I could barely walk after she checked me, it really hurt. So at about 7pm last night I decided to go soak in the tub and I was actually in there for over an hour. It felt so good and I just dreaded getting up and moving. Well I had to, the pruny look does not look good on me....... So I head right to bed and WOW was it hard to get comfortable. No matter how I laid I hurt. So after about an hour or so I get up to go to the bathroom and I let out a big scream. My hips, legs and "you know" hurt so bad, all I could do is start to cry, and I cried and cried and cried for a few hours it seemed. I cried out to God and prayed that he would put me in labor because I can not deal with this pain anymore. I came downstairs to cry some more, where it was more comfortable, and pray some more.. Well, I finally decided to go back up to bed to get some rest and well really didn't get much last night, I laid awake with this tighting in my stomach and every time it did, I kept wondering, is this it? I finally fell asleep at about 5 this morning and woke up the same exact way, in pain........ Since I woke up I had a couple of contractions that were pretty bad but now nothing. I did however go to the bathroom (Sorry TMI) this morning and well, I had the bloody show, so we shall see......

One thing, If I am still pregnant this time next week, I will be going in on Friday to have them insert the Gel......... But I am really praying that I don't have to do that. I really want to go ALL NATURAL.....

A little Project

So I am going to be starting a new project and I will post what it is a little later by I need some input or actually I need your stories. OK NOT long stories, I just would love to hear some of the best and worst (OK even stupid) questions you were asked when you were pregnant. Or, maybe you experience something that was crazy, please feel free to share. You DO NOT have to leave your name, you can add a comment anonymously. Thank you in advance for your input...

What needs to be done before I go into labor....

So I just thought I would put my to-do list out here so maybe it can keep me accountable.. I know I should have gotten a lot of this done by now but I was focusing on other parts of my house.

TO DO LIST:

• Clean out my refrigerator. I know a strange one but I will be doing my big grocery shopping trip next week so I will need a lot of room in the fridge.
• Finish all laundry AND put it all away. Now putting it away is the hard part, getting it clean is the easy part... I still need to wash some of the babies clothes too....
  
• Grocery Shop and plan meals. If I am adventurous enough I may even prepare some, but we will see.
• Finish packing my suitcase for the hospital. I have got it almost done (like all the toiletries and stuff) but still need to get a few more things before I can be officially done.
• Clean bathrooms. I know another odd one but really If I dont scrub the toilets they will not get done and Lord know I will not want to do it when I get home from the hospital.
• Finish Thank You cards. I am so bad at this too, so I do apologize. I totally forgot about them until a couple weeks ago so I really need to do before I have people mad at me...
• Find an alternate to take me to hospital in case Ken is in a meeting or cant make it home right away. He is really afraid that I will not be able to get a hold of him right away or he will be further away in a meeting or something.

So one of my questions is, once my suitcase is packed should I put it in the car when ever I leave to go somewhere? I have never had to think about this because we have always lived with in like 5 minutes of the hospital so we could always go home and get it and still make it to the hospital, but we are about 25- 30 minutes away and I am just worried that I wont have enough time to go home get the stuff and make it to the hospital in time...

No Home Birth

So I wanted to blog this a while ago but I never knew how to say it with out getting so upset. When my husband and I talked about a home birth we both agreed that if one of us did not want to go through with it than we would for go the home birth. Only because I believe that there needs to be a unity when you are bringing a child into this world (especially if you are going to do it at home) and if one person is resentful because they did not feel peace and we went ahead and had a home birth then I am pretty sure there would be some major tension in that room. So, one day after my appointment with my midwife, I came home and I was just so excited. I was just talking Kens ear off and was just full of joy knowing that the day was coming soon..... The day I have been looking forward to and been wanting for years... After a few minutes I knew something was up, he was just sitting there not responding and so I asked him if he was ok? I asked "are you not as excited as I am?" Then he paused for a few seconds and that is when I knew he was getting cold feet. My first instinct was to keep talking and ignore him because I knew what he was going to say and I did not want to hear it, then my second thought was. I will just get up and walk away and go pray for him to change his mind, Again I did not want to hear him say "I don't think you should do this at home". Well, I asked "are you not wanting to go through with this now?" Again, a long pause. I knew that he was trying to find the right words so I would not get upset. So all he said was "I do not feel peace about this." Holding back my tears I asked him "why do you think that is" His reply was " with all that has been going on with this pregnancy, it has not been like the first 2 and I am just afraid that something could happen to you or the baby." So with that being said, I bit my tongue went upstairs, cried for a while and then got on the computer and phone searching for a midwife who delivers at one of the local hospitals and who takes our insurance. Well, there were no midwives in our network and I knew I did not want a Doctor to deliver this baby. So we had to switch insurance networks and I was able to find a great midwife (who all of my friends are using and/or have used...)