Jude has taken to his baby sister really well. He adores her. The first time he met her he seemed a bit in shock that she was no longer in my belly and was now visible. He hugged and kissed her over and over and wanted to be the only one that held her. It was a moment I will never forget.
Everything went pretty smoothly with the induction and the labor. The one fear I did have was the epidural, and of course what went terrible and was absolutely traumatizing? The epidural. I should mention first that I was already having heavy contractions and was in pain. Not in the mood at all for any craziness. So when the Anesthesiologist came in singing the only words she knew to the song, You're Beautiful by John Mayer to herself in a terrible singing voice...I had a bad feeling immediately. I was right to think so. Not only did I get the whole epidural experience one time, but my lucky self got it FOUR times! Yay me! Not! The lady kept talking to herself and was saying things like I am not sure if I can do this because you are small and your have smaller spaces to go between, then she would attempt it. She kept jabbing me and saying, I keep hitting your bones....and said "if I were to get an epidural for anything, I would have so and so do it". She mentioned the name of a coworker. She said, if I can't get it, I will have to call him down. Needless to say, she was overly confident for awhile and kept attempting it between each of my contractions. Then she said, "I better stop because I will end up giving you a spinal headache if I continue." She called her coworker down and he got it in less than 15 seconds. Her three attempts took an hour and a half. It was an hour and a half of HELL! For some reason, I am too kind to hurt someones feelings and be rude, but as soon as she left the room, I burst into uncontrollable tears.
When she was born, I looked to see if I could see any physical characteristics of Down's Syndrome, I didn't. I had asked my doctor at one of his checks during the waiting period for the Pitocin to kick in what they would do if the baby came and did have any characteristics of Down's. He said they would do some bloodwork and some chromosomal testing. I was too nervous to ask once she was born if the tests would be necessary. During my pregnancy, I read a lot. Something I came across, (I don't even remember where), a woman had a baby with Down's Syndrome and was in complete denial. She so badly didn't want to believe it was true that she kept dismissing the idea that her child actually had it. She kept telling herself that this or that unusual physical feature was like so in so's in her family, etc. She said she made excuses for everything. The first night in the hospital, Clint stayed with me. The second night, I wanted to stay alone with the baby and have him stay with Jude at home to help Jude adjust and let me have longer to recover and rest. That second night alone I just stared at her wondering if maybe I wasn't seeing things that maybe others were; that maybe I was doing the same thing that woman was doing and everyone else was just too nice to say anything to me. From the time she was born, everytime a new nurse came to check on us, I kept waiting to see if they would react strangely or I would say, "everything is fine, right?" It was almost as if I needed to hear it over and over from everyone that she was just fine. Every time I heard it, I was more reassured.
I want to thank all of you that kept our family in your prayers and even added us to your church's prayer list. I am confident that it is through your prayers and support that we were blessed with a healthy, beautiful baby girl. Words cannot express our gratitude.
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