The one who made me a mother ....

September 18, 1996 - the day I became a mother. A day that my life changed forever with the arrival of our beautiful daughter Alanna Danae. First grandchild for my parents, fourth grandchild for Martin's parents.
Let me share with you her birth story - and quite the story it is!

Sunday September 15 ....a gallstone attack in the early morning hours (2 a.m.) that landed me in the hospital on an IV and on morphine and gravol to help with the pain. I was having "contractions" but my cervix was posterior and only starting to ripen. Sent home that late afternoon ....with Tylenol 3's which stopped me up. Sent Martin to get me some prune juice. After having a bowl of "raisin bran" and TWO glasses of prune juice (gulp!)- I got the opposite of being stopped up. Yah. Guess what started at about 9 pm Sunday evening? Contractions. Okay, so that DOES work!

Mild contractions ensued all night. I have written in my diary "Martin was great - he rubbed my back a zillion times with or without A535 and went in the shower with me a number of time." OY! Wanna bet Alanna was posterio?? That morning around 7 a.m. contractions stopped. Started again at 1 pm (this is Monday afternoon). However, the contractions were irregular and only 30-45 secs long. Oh, if only I knew then what I know now!! POSTERIOR baby!!!! I'm surprised my water stayed intact. These contractions carry on through to the early morning hours of Tuesday. I'm frustrated and exhausted. Martin called the LMH Maternity ward, and they suggested we come in. Contractions are more spaced out and short. (POSTERIOR BABY!). The nurse checks me and can't even reach my cervix. Tells me I'm in false labour ---gives me ativan and kicks me on home. BLEH. I didn't sleep at all that night despite the ativan.

Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. I had my 41 week appt with my doctor .....who, much to my surprise checked me and said that I was 4 cms dilated and my cervix was anterior! So we head to he hospital. I think we arrived around 1 pm, because my doc came at that time, assessed me to be 6 cms and broke my waters. (arrrggghhhh). By 6 pm, I'm only 7 cms and then I'm told that my cervix isn't entirely anterior and that Alanna needed to rotate about 180 degrees. YA THINK SHE WAS POSTERIOR?? No where do I recall ANYONE suggesting I spend time on my hands and knees. NO ONE suggested that perhaps keeping my water intact would be a good thing!
However, contractions aren't close enough for their liking. So at 7:30 pm the IV Oxytocin gets started. Two hours later I'm still 7 cms. So I received demerol while waiting for the epidural. I'm stuck in bed (like for the last 3 hours) with the fetal monitor on and the IV with Oxytocin.
At 11:30 pm on Tuesday I get my epidural. Now I'm wired for sound. Almost immediately I feel lots of rectal pressure ....but the nurse dismisses it.
By Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. I am huffing and puffing my way through the pressure because it's so intense!! The nurse finally decides to check me and lo and behold I'm 9 cms. At 3:30 a different nurse checks me and she's able to push my cervix over her head while I push. The doc is called, and I start pushing in earnest.

And at 4:13 on Wednesday September 18, Alanna Danae is born ...after an episiotomy because of "heart decels" due to the cord being wrapped around her neck. (since then, I've learned that heart decels are NORMAL during the end of second stage ...and all FOUR of my babies were born with cords around their necks!).

Unfortunately, Alanna was whisked away right away and cleaned up first. I got to hold her after Martin did ...about 20-30 minutes after she was born. She was completely wrapped up. We did no skin to skin --- and I feel very strongly that this is why breastfeeding ultimately failed for us.

BUT ... lest you think that this is a "woe is me" story .... although my birth with her didn't go the way I would now know I'd like .... I was thrilled. THRILLED to receive a beautiful daughter from the Lord, thrilled she was healthy and well, thrilled I was healthy and well ... thrilled to finally be done this long ordeal that started on the 15th!!! She was a beautiful baby ....petite features, dark hair, dark eyes and perfect skin. She was awesome. And she made me a mother.

Here are some pictures I took out of her first year album to commemorate her birthday today: (had to make a quick collage for Martin to scan in since there was no digital photos back then!)


Today Alanna is a beautiful 14 year old. She is being transformed by God's grace into a lovely woman right before our eyes. Her talents and interests are many and varied - from writing, reading, photography and scrapbooking, horses, friends, drawing/art, and even domestic things like sewing and baking! She loves to babysit and has truly pulled her weight for us in the past 3 years. She is thriving in highschool and has a fantastic group of friends. Yes, she's a teenager and along with that comes all kinds of hormonal mood swings, eye rolling, short tempered stuff ...but by and large, she is a wonderful girl and we are blessed to have her in our lives. Here is a photo collage of who she is today:

 

Today she is having a "triple birthday party" with 2 other friends who turn 14 this month. There were supposed to be 6 gals at this party, but unfortunately, one of them couldn't make it. Five 14 year olds here for dinner and a movie. And no sleep. At least not yet! Tomorrow it's French toast for brunch and off to the mall for some shopping. They had a great time today I think! Took some fun pics of them together. What is most awesome for me is to see the friendship between her and Janelle Sikma .... because her mom and I have been friends since Grade 8. That's VERY cool. :-)