I really appreciate all the prayers that she would turn--which she did without help from the doctor. I actually fell heavily in the snow right before going in to the hospital which shook us both up very much and immediately made everything feel different.
So, in case you're thinking about having a baby any time soon, I thought I would suggest some things you can do while you're in labor and then maternity.
While Laboring You Can
Listen to Matt read sermons by John McArthur about women being saved through child birth
Listen to Palestrina
Sing the Fruits of the Spirit song over and over in your head and realize that having all those things isn't actually supposed to be a passive activity but something you make an effort at (a little).
Have the hymn Come Labor On become permanently lodged in your head (I'm not kidding, I began to be hysterically unable to get the words to go away.)
Whine about being in pain and how much you hate labor and giving birth
Gaze out at the landscape and realize that Binghamton in the winter looks just like Communist Russia
Hear over and over that you 1. have a proven pelvis so everything will be fine and 2. have a tired uterus because you have had SO MANY children already
Seriously consider hugging the Epidural person for making it feel a lot like Christmas
Reminisce about growing up in Africa with the nurse who is also an MK only from the Philippines
Finally give up and give birth
While in Maternity You Can
Eat two dinners and then two breakfasts
Spend the night praying for the baby next door who is not eating, not sleeping and unhappy about everything
Read all the Father Brown Mysteries you were intending to read while laboring
Discover something called Percocet
Remodel the Maternity ward in your head
Count the seconds until you can go home
Continue to be completely amazed by how fat your new baby is
Freak out that your awesome new Kim Kardashian approved Belly Bandit will be way too small
Finally be allowed to go home
Pictures to follow!
22 comments:
Congratulations!!!!
Congratulations. You sound fabulous. And now that you know Matt can make his own coffee, why ever make it for him again? :)
Heather near Atlanta
How lovely! How wonderful! Btw, I vote for "Hyacinth." The other is just too hard to say and will become wearisome to type.
I'm so glad I am not the only one who gets fragments of song stuck in my head (where they replay themselves over and over and over). And many congratulations to you and the family! Are your other kids excited?
Hurray! Congratulations! Good work!! Praise God!
I'm so thankful to hear that you and "Winnie" are doing well - especially since Greg and Matt left us with an information blackout after telling us that the baby needed to turn.
How clever of you to use the fall in the snow technique! Amateurs should not attempt this.
I agree with Heather. Cultivate incompetence!!
Marjorie
Welcome to the world, baby girl!
I also vote for Hyacinth. Besides loving Mrs Bucket and her long-suffering husband and neighbors, when you are tired or in a hurry and typing a first initial instead of an entire name, it won't do to have two girls with the same first initial.
Come, Labor On is now stuck in my head, and hardly for the first time. It's an annoyingly catchy tune, especially for a hymn.
Congratulations! Mostly for getting "Come, Labor On" out of your head.
j/k! Many congrats on the new bairn!
Congratulations, Anne. Glad to hear from you. I was beginning to worry that things were really wrong when you hadn't blogged for so long. You can tell that I don't do facebook or twitter. I am glad that you and the baby are fine. Let Matt bring you tea every morning. Any woman who has had six kids in nine years and homeschools to boot deserves breakfast in bed every day of her life. Because we both know that isn't going to happen, just settle happily for hot tea before you feet touch the floor.
Geri
Congratulations..So glad for you.
Seems to me, I read somewhere the way to get rid of a "stuck song" is to sing it to someone else. Then they will be "stuck" until they figure it out.. You've probably given it to me... Hope its true.. As a great grandmother, I'll take the song, instead of all the hard work..
Grandmother in
SC
Congratulations to you both, and blessings to the entire family!
My vote is for Ermentrude, as that was the name of one of the students who befriende Sarah Crewe in the Little Princess, a novel I adored as a child, as well as the others written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Haven't heard that name since and reading it made me smile.
Glad also to read about the baby turning. You've been in my thoughts and prayers. Anywho, so grateful to read the news this evening.
I'm so pleased for you!
Hyacinth? That's a lovely name, but what about Sunflower or Gerbera. They're brighter!
Congratulations!
I'm going with Hyacinth.
Anne,
Shouts of joy from Tokyo! Well, done, and without a C-section, even.
Thankful for you and your whole family.
Kevin
Congratulations to you and best wishes to the rest of the family. You all are in my prayers.
Congratulations on your newest little one! Wish we knew her name!
Thanks so much for this, Anne.
This is one of the funniest postings that I have read in a long time. You are a most gifted writer / thinker.
Congratulations--the fall could have had something to do with it, but so often when there's been multiple babies(been there, done that, too), the baby will turn on his/her own, sometimes when the last horn blows--luckily I never had anyone "breech", but my last was "sunnyside up" and I did the whole labor with her like that(wow, did that HURT way more than the others), and I was worried about having to deliver her that way(and there was a possibility that she was almost 10 lbs.) But, she "flipped over" right at the end and was delivered with one push. My doctor said that happens a lot.
For future reference, people need to do what they want or have to, but were it me I'd skip the "Leopold's Maneuvers" and just have the C-section. I had to do the LM's with my first, but at a younger gestational age, because he had flipped over and they couldn't get the heartbeat. He was fine but LM's hurt like HELL...again, all blessings and I like big broods, too--they're fun!!
Jen in Texas
God bless you dear Anne. And all your babies. And Matt, too, I guess.
Hurrah hurrah!
My dad maintains that ALL babies look like Winston, & the handing out of cigars merely enforces this. :D Personally don't think our first did, but perhaps better luck with the second. ;) ttyl!
~R
As you know, I am so glad things worked out the way they did.
As an aide to thankfulness, here is a story where the woman's water broke while her baby was transverse.
This one has a happy ending so you don't have to worry about being upset reading it.
http://bakersdozen.typepad.com/a_bakerss_dozen_daily_lif/2010/06/the-birth-of-apollo-xiv.html
I am just starting reading this blog but it seems that this is a blog of someone who has more children than you do!
Susan
Ann, Congratulations!! So glad she turned, she is healthy, and you, obviously, survived with your sense of humor intact! So much good news. Let everyone take care of you for a good long while!!
Jeanne
I think Leopold's maneuvers are just the way an OB or midwife determines the position of the baby from feeling the abdomen externally. Before ultrasound they had to be very good at this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold's_maneuvers
It doesn't refer to an external version, which as I hear, can be painful. However these days sometimes women actually have an epidural for an external version. Besides being easier on the mother, if she is more relaxed it is easier for the doc to turn the baby.
Susan Peterson
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