It's just a dash past two weeks since we became a family of four. I just finished feeding our sweet baby girl and she's down for a nap. The sky is gray, the house is quiet, the dog is snoozing at the foot of the steps, and I am sipping tea (picked this up and decided I like it so much that I'd want to drink it even if I wasn't breastfeeding). Finally, some time to myself to process the events of April 12th and embrace the beauty of the past 16 days.
When I wrote my last post I was incredibly anxious. Not only to meet our sweet baby, but also to be crossing the pregnancy finish line. For whatever reason, this pregnancy was much more difficult for me than my first - perhaps because I've been chasing around a toddler, perhaps because it included a move across state lines, perhaps because I'm just a little older than last time and my body is slower to keep up. Who really knows? But I was done being pregnant.
The day before my due date, Dustin and I headed to the doctor for our weekly checkup. I still wasn't terribly dilated, but had made enough progress that my doctor offered to induce me the following day, on my due date. I couldn't get "yes" out fast enough. That evening D and I dropped Forester off with my parents and enjoyed our last night of uninterrupted sleep after a dinner with our friends. In the early hours of April 12th, we drove down the mountain to the hospital to prepare to meet our little bundle.
The process of labor and delivery has really been a special experience for me - one that I actually love. It's not that it's easy or quick, but the thought of my body working to push out a child has been such an incredible moment for me. To have my husband at my side, telling me when pushes are good, holding my hand, wiping the sweat from my forehead, holding my puke bag (y'all, throwing up while laying on your back, actively pushing, is so incredibly humbling - thank you D for loving me through such a raw moment!). The care of the nurses, the music playing in the background - it all gets wrapped into a very special moment in my heart that will stay with me forever.
Thankfully, unlike Forester's near 30-hour labor, this one lasted just 13 hours. Just before 6:20pm our sweet baby's head emerged. In a moment of wanting to cry tears of joy, close my eyes in sheer exhaustion, and just stop pushing for 30 seconds so I could catch my breath, I could see a look of concern on my doctor's face. Our sweet baby was stuck. Her shoulder was caught under my pelvis. As my doctor would later explain to me, a stuck baby is incredibly dangerous. The umbilical cord had been around our baby's neck, meaning that when she got stuck, the umbilical cord was also stuck, cutting off oxygen. Seconds felt like minutes. My doctor, in a very serious tone, told me to push as hard as I could. When she didn't budge my doctor reached in, grabbed our baby, and pulled her free.
Dustin barely was able to look and shout, "It's a girl!" before they immediately cut the cord and the nurses took her away to work on her. D didn't leave her side. I just kept looking over at them both, Dustin occasionally whispering to her that she was okay and we loved her, looking at me telling me everything was okay. After much effort on behalf of the nurses they got her to breathe - a moment of relief for me.
A sweet baby girl. I could hardly believe it. A baby girl. We named her Hensley Frances Stutzman, Hensley after a Navy Seal and Frances after her great-grandmother. Boy was this sweet girl a fighter.
Once the chaos settled and I could talk to the doctor we were able to learn a bit more about what was going on with Hensley as she was making her dramatic arrival. Baby girl turned out to be much larger than expected. 9lbs 1oz. I hadn't gotten an ultrasound after 20 weeks so the external measurements were all the doctor was able to use for an estimation of size. Apparently I was hiding her well - after all I gained less than 30 pounds this pregnancy and was much smaller than I was with Forester (who was just 7lbs. 8oz.). Hensley had shoulder dystocia, where her shoulders didn't deliver immediately after her head due to being trapped under my pelvis. There are a few ways to retrieve a stuck baby, including breaking the clavicle, arm, etc - all of which were unavailable to Hensley due to her positioning. The only option was for my doctor to reach in and pull her out.
An unfortunate cause of her being stuck was that she was born with Erb's Palsy, paralysis of her right arm. The nerves in her neck that control her arm were damaged during delivery. She can shrug her shoulder just a bit and can grip with her fingers and hand, but has no movement in between those two points.
We've met with a specialist and have started physical therapy to help preventing stiffness in her joints, but the nerve damage will have to heal itself. The specialist is giving us four weeks to see progress in her arm. If she still doesn't show any sign of movement, we'll talk about a possible future surgery in Cincinnati for a nerve transplant.
The positive news is that the majority of children with Erb's Palsy have a full recovery. The hard part is that only time will tell. Until then, we are praying over our sweet little girl. We are working with her around the clock to try to keep her arm moving. And of course we're loving all over her sweet little face.
Becoming a family of four has been the biggest blessing of this life of mine. Forester has taken so sweetly to Hensley. He brings her gifts of blankets and pacifiers and pats her on the head while babbling sweet nothings to her. He affectionately calls her "Sissy" and she's the first thing on his mind as he sprints from his room each morning. Watching our children together has been such a gift to Dustin and me. We sit in amazement that we've been blessed with two beautiful children.
Amazingly we've adjusted much quicker than we thought. Dustin has been helping with taking Forester to school since I'm usually tied up nursing Hensley in the morning. We spend our nights around the dinner table, eating, drinking (hello wine!), and talking about our day. And we top it off with a nightly walk through the neighborhood until we have to bathe Forester and put him to bed.
Hensley has taught me to slow down, stress less, and embrace the now. I can't even begin to explain how weepy I feel watching my husband hold and rock his baby girl - he is already wrapped around her little finger. And goodness the village we have been blessed with is incredible. My parents watched Forester, our next door neighbors watched our dog and brought dinner to Dustin while he stayed home with our little man. Our friends and neighbors made us dinner the night before we went to the hospital so I wouldn't have to cook, and more friends have already been to the house, dropped off dinner and loved on our kids.
I'm reminded that God provides just what we need right when we need it. So incredibly grateful for him bringing our sweet Hensley into this world.
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