Welcoming Our Baby Girl

Our third child was born on Tuesday, April 20th. The delivery itself was a scheduled c-section and was uneventful.

However, looking back on the pregnancy, there were a number of near misses that we were happy to avoid. For the first 24 weeks of my pregnancy, when I went to the doctor for check-ups, she could never detect the heart rate. This was troubling at first, and then became normal for me. Each appointment then involved an ultrasound to check the baby’s well being. It turned out the placenta was in the front of my stomach and blocking the doctor’s access to the heart beat.

Late in the pregnancy I developed high blood pressure and had to go on bed rest. I was very lucky that the progression of this was slow so we were able to carefully monitor it and still have the baby on her scheduled date, rather than earlier.

When I was having the c-section, I asked the doctor to look and see if everything was alright internally because my husband and I have seriously thought about having four kids and I know risks increase with every c-section. The doctor told me during the surgery that my uterus was paper thin; she could literally see through it and said she had never seen one that thin without it being a uterine rupture and putting both baby and mom in danger. She thought if we waited one more day to have the baby it would have ruptured.

Of course, I am sad that this means no more kids for us, but I feel very blessed that there was no rupture and both of us are safe and healthy.

She is a very calm baby and her brother and sister are both excited to have her home, as are we.