Violet is my dear sweet littlest baby girl. She is the blonde blue-eyed bombshell among two brown haired non-blue eyed parents.....?! Kid you not!
She is probably taking those features from my father, Hau'oli, a curly haired strawberry blonde hawaiian and his blue-eyed California-German Father, My Tutu.
We had just completed the demolition of our new home, and Kai was not yet a year old when we were surprised....I mean blessed with expectation at the new bundle that was on her way.
Honestly, when you have your first child and settle in to momma-hood, you really think about how that dynamic of a second child is going to change things for the first one. You feel a little bad that all that one on one devoted time will now have to be abrubtly taken away to support the other one. Besides, there was a bit of a fear about the fact I was not going to have the luxury of a finished home for a new set of girl(s).
I had Kai in September of 2006. She is my sweet gateway to mama hood. With Kai, Everything in the pregnancy was great. I had normal readings and good progress along the way. During the Birth I had a complication at the final push which triggered a set of Hemorrhages. These hemorrhages were left unnoticed for a short period of time as they resembled the placenta, which they realized after I started to lose conscienceness was actually two very large Blood Clots.....Kai's Story will be on another Blog, but I wanted to lead in to Violets.
With Violet, I was concerned I would have a similar situation with regards to the hemorrhages and tearing. My Insurance Changed at the end of December to a new provider, which unfortunately would not be covered by my current doctor.....damn insurance companies! I had 3 months to find a new doctor willing to deliver my child and who I could entrust with my concerns of similar first birth.
The first Doctor told me he didn't understand what I was talking about, by looking at my chart with regards to the extensive tearing I spoke about, as the scar tissue was minimal....I told him, "The Head of Surgery came into my delivery Room, under the Code Blue and (this was a University Hosp.) there was about 20 physicians in attendance (no joking) for the educational purposes(hopefully there were no bets to my survival) and when I asked about the stitches he said "too many to count"...."ohhhhh" I said. He said he didn't see the scarring and therefore, I had nothing to worry about. I told him I would still worry, and even shed a tear or two in the process (I get like that with doctors....don't know why, they intimidate me) As this was a sort of Interview he said he would take me on....here is my initial inner monologue:
"What a jerk"...(me to me)
"You can find better"...(me to me)
"Ummmm, no you can't, there is no time"...(me to me)
"Well, what do you think 'ME'?"(me to me)
"I think that the smart jerks are probably the best doctors with the most confidence and the biggest ego"..."I think you should take this guy, cause even though he is mean, you will most likely live through this birth with this guy"(me to me)
"really?...you think so?"(me to me)
"Yes"(me to me)
"Doctor, so and so, I would love to have you be my doctor"(me to doctor)
"You will need to come here every week until the birth as you will need to meet each Doctor in my practice in case either of them ends up delivering your child."(doctor to me)
"What?"....."Okay" (me to me and me to doctor)
It ended up the last Doctor I met in the practice was my favorite. He was young, handsome and funny....really funny. "David" The kind of funny where you can joke about whats going on 'down there' and there isn't any uncomfortable-ness.....really funny.
He ended up being the one that delivered my girl......Yippey!
Actually, after going back a few times, I really loved all of those doctors. I think the first DR was being a hard-ass with me to set a professional tone....
"David" ended up being really sympathetic to my concerns about a repeat of the first birth experience and we developed a comfortable verbal communication. For the first time I wasn't intimidated by a DR!
Around the end of January I asked about the size of the baby and he said we "might" look into an induction, but it wouldn't be necessary as my first and second would be different. I warned him about us polynesian beauties and our offspring....they can get pretty big, at least mine could. At the end of February he sent me to get an Ultrasound of Violet and she was already 7 1/2 lbs estimated.....and there was still 5 weeks to go! He then said we would "for sure" Induce at the earliest which would be 10days early.....so 3 more weeks of gestation! Yikes...how big will she get?
Picking the Day:
I looked at the Calendar and had a set of days that would work for everyone....I mean if you are inducing, why not work it out for everyone?...I looked at the upcoming dates and realized the date the Dr. was shooting for was Either St. Patricks Day or the day after and that was it. I plead my case:
"Um, what day were you thinking Dr.David?"
"What day is good for you?"
"Well, I do not want to birth my child on St. Patty's Day"
"Why? with a smile"
"Well I don't want my little girl to grow up to be an alcoholic"
"Laughter, why would that be?"
"Well, St. Patty's Day is one of the biggest drinking days of the year, and my family is really, really social." "in fact, I am thinking she will be screwed either way, but we have a better chance at the day after" and then I just had to throw in one more thought:
"I think anyone who has their child on St. Patty's Day has their work cut out for them, and that poor child is definetly gonna be a drinker!"
"My son is born on St.Patricks Day"
"........silence.......foot in mouth......Is he an alcoholic?"
"He's eight"
"Well, then watch out!"
Laughter.....whewwww that was close!
I decided I needed to "nest" the day before the Induction date. I called a friend and asked her to help me find a computer.....today! She is my thrifty friend and we got an awesome deal! I got a new digital camera and Scanner too!
Violet was born on March 18th 2008 with a one-minute push....really...one minute. I went in at 7 was on a drip by 9 and made sure they knew I wanted the epi....(sorry for all you "natural birth" peeps...much respect, I just didn't want it that way for me.) So I sat there enjoying the scene outside my window (it is the landing pad for the emergency helicopter) and of my home across the river! pretty great view!
When the time came, I just sort of "felt it" with out pain (thanks to the epidural)I told the nurse who didn't think it was really time, so she took a peak and immediately "rushed" out of the room. Dr. David was back there in less than 2 minutes. He let me know about a poor little boy that was waiting for the second part of a circumcision and if we could move things along that would be best for the boy.....He was kidding! He then took a peak and OH my! Her head was already out!
He took her head in his hands and said, "Don't Push" and "okay well never mind, go ahead and push"...One push and she was out. He said, that was a record...only 1 minute, if even! Then he assessed the tearing and realized there was an issue he needed to really take care of....There it was again, the scare I had from the first time, but he handled it well and there was not the emergency there was the first time, only a lot of stitching, which he said he wasn't prepared for. It was amazing though, he orchestrated a very positive comforting experience and he was telling joke after joke...it was such a blast. I really had a good time! So thats the story of her birth.....everything else will be about her progress through life, her milestones and her bumps in the road. Thanks for reading!
I will try to update this post, but we will see how I do at remembering it exists. =) I am a little forgetful at times, but in the really busy, Oh Yeah! , sort of way.
Oh, By the way...Violet was 8 lb 9 oz.....pretty tiny ;0)
