Hannah was 11 days late. So, naturally, I assumed that Timmy would be late. Much to our surprise, my water broke at about 8pm on January 11th and I wasn't due until the 28th! Caleb was sledding on the driveway with Hannah and I opened the front door to tell him the shocking news. He laughed and continued playing. It took me a few minutes to convince him, but once he realized I wasn't kidding he went into crazy packing mode. Me, on the other hand, I just stood there in shock. I couldn't function. I had packing lists but couldn't follow them. I just couldn't believe it.
My due date was January 28th. We went back and forth on whether or not I should try a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Hannah's delivery was not so fun and ended up in an emergency c-section situation after 24 hours of labor and I did not want that same experience with Timmy. I wanted to enjoy the experience and marvel in the miracle. After much debate and praying over and over again about it, we decided that we would schedule a c-section for the 25th of January (since Hannah was so BIG and Timmy was already measuring 2 weeks ahead of schedule) and if I went in to labor early then it must be a sign from God that I should try a VBAC. I don't like to make "deals" or "bargains" with God, but we just didn't know what the best decision was.
So, I had just cleaned up the basement and I stood up to get the vacuum and couldn't believe what I was feeling. I was not ready. Normally, I'm the kind of person that has everything ready way ahead of time. This wasn't supposed to be happening yet. My mom wasn't here to watch Hannah. My bags weren't packed. I was supposed to have a c-section on the 25th!
I gave my friend, Hilary, a call and asked her if she would take Hannah for a day or two. She was so happy to do so and Hannah was thrilled to spend the night at her friend Carleigh's house. She was running around the house like it was the night before Christmas. It was so comforting to know that she would be treated like family and I didn't worry one bit about her while I was in the hospital.
Next, I called my mom and prefaced the news with, "This is not a joke." She couldn't believe it either. She was having a huge luncheon at her house the next day so she could not come up right away. Thankfully, she was able to drive up to Michigan after the luncheon the next day and take Hannah off of the Botts' hands.
So, once Hannah was on her way we loaded up the car and headed to the hospital. The roads were very snowy and it was a slow drive, but my contractions hadn't kicked in yet so we weren't worried.
I was taken to triage and the contractions started up on their own at about 10pm. The doctor obviously decided to admit me since my water had broken, but all of the rooms were taken so we had to wait in triage for several hours.
We finally got our room at 2:15am and settled in for a long night. My contractions were getting much stronger and a little closer together. Unfortunately, I was still only dilated to 1 cm so the doctor gave me a Foley bulb. It worked quite well because by about 6am I was dilated to 4 cm. I really did NOT like my nurse at this point because I was in a lot of pain and she asked me if I'd like her to take me down the hall to see someone who was actually having labor pains. Not a nice thing to say to someone! I was in labor and I was having major contractions. You see, they had inserted an internal contraction measurer thingy because they had to monitor my contractions much more closely since I had the c-section with Hannah and was at a higher risk for uterine rupture. Turns out that it was inserted incorrectly and when the doctor from my practice came in to check me he said it had been done incorrectly and had pretty much fallen out. He said my contractions were much stronger than what was appearing on the monitor.
I was so extremely grateful when the next nurse came on duty at 7am. She was wonderful! By 8am, Dr. Deenadaylu from my office had checked on me. I was up to 5 cm and 90% effaced. I had made a lot of progress since the evening before, but it was slow going and reminded me so much of what I went through with Hannah. I was trying to stick it out as long as possible without the epidural this time because I felt that that might have stalled me with Hannah even though the doctors and nurses assured me that wouldn't have been the case.
By 9:15am I was desperately wanting the epidural and my new nurse, Julie, was so supportive and could tell how much pain I was in. She told me there was absolutely no reason to wait any longer and I got the epidural as soon as possible and felt immediate relief!
Dr. D checked me again at 12:20 and I had not progressed one bit. I was so disappointed because I was feeling a lot of pressure and thought for sure that I must have been at least 7 or 8 cm. They couldn't up my pitocin anymore since I had the prior c-section so I was pretty much just stalled.
I told him I was ready for the c-section and he was extremely supportive. We decided to give it another hour to see what would happen and I still had not progressed.
So, at 2:13pm we welcomed our little boy into this world via c-section. When Dr. D. got me open he said I had an abnormally large amount of scar tissue from the first c-section. I also had complicated issues with my bladder being in a different location or something and my uterus had scarred to my abdominal wall as well as my bladder. He said he was so thankful that we called the c-section when we did because he wouldn't want to do the surgery in an emergency situation. He was glad to have plenty of time to work around my issues. He even had to run formula (different color than urine or blood) through my bladder before I was stitched back up to make sure he hadn't accidentally cut it because it was so entangled with my uterus.
When I heard my baby boy cry for the first time tears of joy just streamed down my face. It had been such an incredible journey for us and at one point we weren't sure if we would even be able to have a second child. It was such an amazing feeling to go from a family of three to a family of four and we are so thankful to God for blessing us with our new addition!
Timothy Caleb Coddington
January 12, 2011
2:13pm
7 lbs 12 oz
20 inches
PaPa and Daddy crafted a castle just for Hannah out of our new washing machine boxes. Hannah got to decorate her princess castle all by herself and she enjoyed every minute of it. JuJu packs a "Mickey Mouse Bag" of presents for Hannah during our visits and Hannah gets to open one a day. She was so exited to open a gold treasure box and put it in her castle. It stores all of her precious heart stickers in case she feels like redecorating :)
