Born: April 28, 2000
Several months after Hanna was born, I knew that I wanted a brother or sister for her. Convincing daddy was different story, he wasn’t sure. Of course it didn’t take much to convince him. I knew that I wanted a Spring baby, born in May. So we planned it all out. On Hanna’s first birthday, I knew that I was pregnant but we waited until the next day to take the test. I had the test already to go, dad went and got in the shower. He was teasing me on how to read the test which lines mean what. So Hanna and I went down stairs and took the test and of course it came up positive. We returned up stairs and waited for daddy to get out of the shower to show him the results. He was in shock and had to ask me what everything meant, this after he just finished explaining it all to me, like I didn’t already know. The day was spent at the beach as a family. It was a wonderful day!!
Much like the pregnancy with Hanna I had border line high blood pressure and in the second trimester I actually had normal blood pressure for 6 weeks. I did get the carpal tunnel in my left arm only, not so bad. I had many, many braxton hicks contractions. At some points I thought that it was time they were so real. Course I didn’t know what real was cause I never experienced anything like this with Hanna. It was all new to me. At about 30 weeks, my blood pressure was higher than we would have liked so I had to stop working and stay at home to rest. I had a home care nurse come in and take my blood pressure twice a week and doctors visits once a week. I was being well looked after. I was bigger this time at 28 weeks than I was at 34 weeks when I delivered Hanna. That was a little scary! At 32 weeks I went for another ultrasound. The tech that did the ultrasound was really wonderful and answered all my questions. I also asked if we could find out the sex of the baby. (Here in the lower main land, the tech’s are not allowed to tell the patient the sex of the baby, cultural differences) She asked what I wanted to have. I said either way I would be happy. I would tell people I would be disappointed either way, I would like a boy to have one of each, but yet I could really see myself saying, “come on girls” and doing crafts and planting seeds. And Daddy……well….. he wanted his girls!! She told me that we would have another little girl. I was thrilled and daddy, he was even more so. Daddy was so excited he couldn’t keep it to himself, he had to tell the families. Hanna would always ask to see my ever-expanding belly and give it kisses and snuggles; she loved the baby well before she arrived. She even at times would read to the baby, course she was the only one who knew what she was saying but it was very sweet.
At 32 weeks I also had to start going for non-stress tests. They wanted to keep an eye on babies activities and heart rate while being playing. I did that every week until our girl arrived. At 34 weeks I was praying that our little girl stayed inside for a little while longer and not come that early like Hanna. At 36 week appointment (Wednesday) I tried to talk Dr. Wagner into inducing me at 37 weeks, it was considered full term. That didn’t fly. I was uncomfortable, huge, huge, huge and not sleeping. On the Thursday I had Grammy come for a sleep over (she had been staying at Kerry’s until our girl arrived) Good thing, Friday April 28th, when I got up at 6:45am, I started to head to the bathroom and a gush of water ran down my legs. Luckily I had a towel right there. I was leaking, more and more. I wasn’t so sure that I hadn’t peed myself. I called the hospital around 7:15am and asked them how I would know, they told me if I kept leaking then it was my water that had broken and I should come in. Hanna woke up so I got her dressed and ready for the day and we headed down stairs and I woke Grammy up with the news. She couldn’t believe her ears. We called Kerry to see if she and the kids could come out for the day to help keep Hanna and Grammy company. And to tell her that today was the day! I also called Oma and Opa to tell them the news too. Now I needed to track daddy down. He was coming off his shift at the fire department and had plans for the day. I called him at the hall and he had already left, so I called his cell phone. I had, had my first contraction while on the phone with Kerry, this was at about 7:50am. They started to come fast by the time I got a hold of daddy. He stopped for coffee, if you can believe that, he said he was just pulling into the parking lot when I called. We arrived at the Hospital at about 8:45am, checked in at the emergency and then headed up stairs. My contractions were really close together now, about 3 minutes. Once we got up stairs to labor and delivery, they got me settled into a labor room, I was checked, I was already 5cm dilated. I had asked for the epidural, but I was told it was to late, by the time it started to work I would already have the baby in my arms. The contractions were coming fast and furious. Needless to say things progressed very quickly and painfully. By 10:09am our wonderful and beautiful Sara Elizabeth was born. She weighed 7lbs 4oz and was 20” long. Her apgar scores were 8 & 9. She had a little bruising on her face due to the quick delivery. She latched on and breast-feed like a champ, right away. Daddy brought Hanna to the hospital later that night to meet her new sister, she wasn't quite sure what to think. Saturday morning my doc came in to check me and Sara out and I asked if we could go home. I was really looking forward to having our newly expanded family at home. By 3:30pm that afternoon we were home!
Time: 10:09 a.m.
Weight : 7 lbs. 4 oz.
Length: 20 inches