Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Natalie Dawn Butler

 I am finally sitting down to blog the arrival of my sweet litle Natalie Dawn Butler.

 When I was about 36 weeks pregnant, I went to the dr and he checked to see how my pregnancy was progressing. He checked, then announced "That is not baby's head! Get me the ultrasound machine!" The intern that was with him went and got an ultra sound machine and sure enough, our little baby was not head down! I talked with the doctor for a while about our options. There were three. 1: Have her breech (since she wasn't my first, they would let me do this. But I was strongly urged to have an epidural, which I didn't want to have.) 2: Have her c-section (this wasn't my first choice. I could have a baby normally, I knew I could! I had had 2 more already!) and last but not least 3: Try an inversion.

 At first I didn't even want to try an inversion. I googled it. It sounded painful. It sounded scary. It sounded dangerous. So I got a blessing. And in the middle of that blessing, I was about 99.9% sure that she would be born c-section. BUT... I still was willing to try all the old wives tales, call my previous doctor and ask his opinion, and also pray and hope she would turn all by herself. A couple weeks later I went back to the doctor. Dr. Izenberg checked me, no progress and still breech. After about 20 minutes worth of Q&A I decided the next week Zach and I would meet Dr. Izenberg at the hospital to try an inversion. Two days before the inversion was scheduled I called the doctor office and asked if I needed to fast. There was a possibility that if anything went wrong I would have to have an emergency C-Section right then. The receptionist told me I didn't have to.
 
  On December 5th we arrived at the hospital a little before 11:30am. My nurses name was Courtney. She asked me the last time I ate. "Breakfast! Doy!" Oh, well guess what?! I was supposed to fast! :/ So we had to wait. Instead of trying the inversion at noon, we had to wait until 3:30. Then Dr. Izenberg got backed up at work. Finally after 1 blood draw, 2 ultrasounds, 1 IV, a long boring afternoon, 1 shot in the shoulder and a few members of the hospital staff giving me heck for not fasting... Dr. Izenberg showed up and we got ready to start the inversion. They gave me a shot, set up the ultrasound tech, put a nurse behind my head, a nurse to try and turn the bottom of Natalie and Dr. Izenberg to try and move her head. Then I'm pretty sure the rest of the hospital came in to watch.

 Zach held my hand, I started crying, and they started turning. It didn't work, so they tried going the opposite way. It didn't work. Time was up. She was still breech. They said they would watch me for an hour and then the doctor told the nurse to give me my rogham shot. She tossed the blood. I had to have my blood drawn again. They gave me my rogham shot and we waited. Zach went to go get us something to eat since I was starving. They gave me some nasty chicken noodle soup, crackers and apple juice.

It was now 7pm. Zach's parents and Levi came to see how things were going. The nurse came in and asked how I felt. "Fine." Do my contractions hurt? "Nope." Then Levi informed me my contractions were steadily 6 minutes apart. Thanks Levi. The nurses wanted to send me home. Dr. Izenberg came back in. He wanted the nurses to check me before they let me go home. I was in labor. They gave me a shot, it would either stop my labor, or put me into FULL labor. Then they said they would send me home. Zach wasn't having that. They called Dr. Izenberg. He would be back in the morning, and we would have a baby!

  Natalie Dawn Butler was born December 6, 2012 at 5:58am. She was 7lbs 15 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. It was a crazy, very different delivery. But she has been so much fun to have in our family! Brigette and Tera just adore her, it's always a fight over who gets to hold her. We are completely in love with her and we are so happy to have her as our little girl!