It seems to be a trend among my daughters to have very dramatic birth stories. Evangeline takes the cake for the scariest day of my life, but this entire pregnancy up to the birth were more taxing on this mama's body overall. Even my doctor, who's a high-risk OBGYN, told me a week beforehand: "I feel like this pregnancy has lasted a long time for you. Some of my other patients seem to be in and out super quick, but it's been so slow. You've had like every symptom under the sun. You poor thing!" I was like "THANK YOU for sympathizing!" This doc has seen me from the very beginning so it meant a lot that he didn't think I was lookin' like a walking Quasimoto for no reason at all.
At 37 weeks exactly on September 16, I had a planned c-section scheduled for 8:30 am. I was so excited to give birth so I could finally meet my second baby girl! The nurses and anesthesiologist prepped me and walked me to the operating room. It was extra sweet bc our Auntie Susie came to surprise us beforehand and prayed with us for a safe delivery. She kept saying that in her heart and her mind she felt convicted that this baby would be safe and sound and full term and soon we would meet her. That meant a lot to me, especially since all I could refer back to was Evangeline's birth. Since this pregnancy was also high-risk, besides the nurses and anesthesiologist, a NICU team was in the corner waiting to assess the baby once she arrived. That made me feel reassured and nervous at the same time.
In the OR, they sat me up and told me step by step what they were doing for the epidural. I remember feeling the needle go into my back and slowly losing all feeling from my legs to my chest. I warned them all that in my first delivery with Evangeline, I had thrown up immediately. Unfortunately at the time of all this, I had a small cough and cold. I was panicking bc when I coughed I couldn't feel my chest and I was scared I would choke if I vomited. I was also hyper salivating still so they gave me a suction (like the kind at the dentist) and I just had that in my mouth the entire time so I wouldn't choke or vomit unnecessarily during or beforehand. Everything was calm and Kevin was still somewhere outside of the OR getting dressed in scrubs.
Then all of a sudden there was loud beeping and the nurse said "The baby's heart rate is dropping. It was 160 but now it's 50!" They told me that they would change my position to see if it would help the baby so they held onto me as the entire table shifted diagonally to my right side. It didn't really help so they started to call my doctor who was just outside the door. He actually was in and out of the room as I was being prepped so I knew he was close by.
"What's happening?" he said as he entered.
"The heartbeat is down." the nurse said.
That's when all the rushing started happening and I was like, "Wait, where's my husband?" They told me they had to get started ASAP bc of the baby's heart and that Kevin would be in soon. I remember being tugged and pulled on a lot and was relieved when Kevin sat next to me. It took longer than Evangeline's birth, and at one point they told me I would feel a lot of pressure on my left side. I remember thinking "Are they all just pressing down on me?" So much tugging and pulling, and then I heard the doctor say this:
"The umbilical cord is around the baby's neck!"
More pulling and tugging and finally one super hard pull occured, as I yelled "IS SHE OKAY?!" Nobody answered me and I remember just waiting to hear a baby's cry. And then we heard her.
I watched Kevin's face since the drape was covering my view of everything, and he reacted very similarly to when he first saw Evangeline. Pure love shining in his eyes, he was overcome with emotion- and if you know Kevin, you know he isn't a very emotional person to begin with, so that's a pretty big deal. They started to call Kevin over but first he made sure I was ok before he left my side. There was more tugging and pulling as I heard the baby's cry become stronger. Apparently I found out later that Kevin was cutting the cord, which was pretty cool bc he never got to do that with Evangeline. And since this was a high risk pregnancy we didn't want to assume he could get that chance either. The NICU team gave me a thumbs up before they left the room and told me baby's APGAR score was 9 out of 9, and that she looked great! I smiled and said thank you to them for making sure she was okay!
My doctor then told me that my uterus was really weird...I was like, "What does that mean?" He said that somehow because of my first c-section, my uterus was really thin and that it had practically no muscle. "It's a good thing we scheduled you for c-section at 37 weeks exactly, right after your shots to keep the baby in, bc if you had gone into labor...the old scar would have opened up and your baby wouldn't have made it. And you could've possibly hemorrhaged to death."
Before I could really process those words, a nurse said to me, "Alright mommy, we are gonna do some skin-to-skin!" And then I felt this small and chubby body put on me, and laughed and said, "Kev! She looks so Asian!" It had been a fun past time for us to talk about what our second daughter would look like, since we are both mixed (our daughters are 5/8 Filipina, 1/4 Austrian-French-Greek-English, and 1/8 Chinese) Unfortunately I felt like passing out so I couldn't hold onto baby as long as I wanted, so Kevin ended up holding her and I was content just staring at them as I laid on the table shivering as the pregnancy hormones left me. I just kept playing with the suction in my mouth, relieved baby and me were okay.
Later on, when baby was sleeping, Kevin and I talked about what it meant for us to have everything happen at the timing that it did. We pondered what this meant for us...for the past two months we had been worried about placenta accreta, a life-threatening risk, but really, uterine rupture had been the biggest threat for baby and me because of my weakened uterus? The whole purpose of the weekly progesterone shots was to keep the baby inside and prevent preterm labor, so once it ended at 36 weeks, the doctor said we needed to deliver this baby at specifically 37 weeks and 0 days. And what was going on with that umbilical cord around baby's neck when she was born? If she had been inside me a bit longer, would that have been a huge danger for her as well? I couldn't believe the small details and timing of everything, the fact that I was already prepped and ready for the operation when her heart beat started going down exactly at that time. The timing was seriously spot on.
A few months prior to the delivery, I had been at church listening to our pastor give a sermon and one story stuck out in my mind. It was about a man who had been in danger but wasn't harmed on a specific occasion, and when he had met with a friend he had shared about how God protected him. The friend then took out a prayer journal, and it showed that on that specific day and time, he was praying for divine protection for that specific man! It was a powerful illustration and reminder that God answers prayer and that we have a duty to intercede for one another. I had made it a point to pray for divine protection over this baby, and I knew so many of my friends and family had been praying too...Perhaps one of the biggest eye-opening realizations for us was that we wouldn't have been able to tell any of these things were happening until the actual delivery! How could we know that the umbilical cord was already around her neck? Or that my uterus was so weak it wouldn't have been able to handle a normal labor and delivery with contractions? I mean, we always knew the danger of uterine rupture, but the doctor said I was for sure one of those women who would've had it if I did go into labor. It wasn't just a theory. It was a reality we did not have to face. There were SO many variables to take into account. One of the more heartbreaking truths for us was knowing that since my uterus was so weak, if her twin had grown alongside her, one or two of them wouldn't have been able to grow up to full-term bc my uterus wouldn't have lasted in keeping both of them (or me) safe. Did God mercifully choose to protect this baby and me by taking her twin alongside Him in heaven so that I could be a wife to Kevin, and mom to the girls, for a longer amount of time here on Earth? I can't even begin to fathom the way this all worked out. God's ways are so mysterious. I'm just so thankful she's is here and that I can watch her grow alongside her sister.
And that leads us to her name. Kevin and I named her Elianna, which means "God answered." It was actually a challenge to find a name that could stand on its own next to Evangeline. Kevin was always saying, "Evangeline's name means 'good news.' Her name is basically gospel! We can't just name our second daughter something without a special meaning as well!" So it feels appropriate based on this entire pregnancy and birth story that Elianna is living up to her name. A lot of people asked us if we had wanted a son, but we actually had specifically prayed for another daughter. It was even harder to choose a middle name but we finally agreed on Praise, which means "to give glory to." I also have a friend named Praise who was very influential to me during my first few years in my Christian walk in college, so it has a sweet connotation in my mind. My friend Praise also sang worship during a lot of our AACF large group meetings so I actually am really hoping Elianna has a beautiful singing voice as well!
Here are some pics from Elianna's birth day:
At 37 weeks exactly on September 16, I had a planned c-section scheduled for 8:30 am. I was so excited to give birth so I could finally meet my second baby girl! The nurses and anesthesiologist prepped me and walked me to the operating room. It was extra sweet bc our Auntie Susie came to surprise us beforehand and prayed with us for a safe delivery. She kept saying that in her heart and her mind she felt convicted that this baby would be safe and sound and full term and soon we would meet her. That meant a lot to me, especially since all I could refer back to was Evangeline's birth. Since this pregnancy was also high-risk, besides the nurses and anesthesiologist, a NICU team was in the corner waiting to assess the baby once she arrived. That made me feel reassured and nervous at the same time.
In the OR, they sat me up and told me step by step what they were doing for the epidural. I remember feeling the needle go into my back and slowly losing all feeling from my legs to my chest. I warned them all that in my first delivery with Evangeline, I had thrown up immediately. Unfortunately at the time of all this, I had a small cough and cold. I was panicking bc when I coughed I couldn't feel my chest and I was scared I would choke if I vomited. I was also hyper salivating still so they gave me a suction (like the kind at the dentist) and I just had that in my mouth the entire time so I wouldn't choke or vomit unnecessarily during or beforehand. Everything was calm and Kevin was still somewhere outside of the OR getting dressed in scrubs.
Then all of a sudden there was loud beeping and the nurse said "The baby's heart rate is dropping. It was 160 but now it's 50!" They told me that they would change my position to see if it would help the baby so they held onto me as the entire table shifted diagonally to my right side. It didn't really help so they started to call my doctor who was just outside the door. He actually was in and out of the room as I was being prepped so I knew he was close by.
"What's happening?" he said as he entered.
"The heartbeat is down." the nurse said.
That's when all the rushing started happening and I was like, "Wait, where's my husband?" They told me they had to get started ASAP bc of the baby's heart and that Kevin would be in soon. I remember being tugged and pulled on a lot and was relieved when Kevin sat next to me. It took longer than Evangeline's birth, and at one point they told me I would feel a lot of pressure on my left side. I remember thinking "Are they all just pressing down on me?" So much tugging and pulling, and then I heard the doctor say this:
"The umbilical cord is around the baby's neck!"
More pulling and tugging and finally one super hard pull occured, as I yelled "IS SHE OKAY?!" Nobody answered me and I remember just waiting to hear a baby's cry. And then we heard her.
I watched Kevin's face since the drape was covering my view of everything, and he reacted very similarly to when he first saw Evangeline. Pure love shining in his eyes, he was overcome with emotion- and if you know Kevin, you know he isn't a very emotional person to begin with, so that's a pretty big deal. They started to call Kevin over but first he made sure I was ok before he left my side. There was more tugging and pulling as I heard the baby's cry become stronger. Apparently I found out later that Kevin was cutting the cord, which was pretty cool bc he never got to do that with Evangeline. And since this was a high risk pregnancy we didn't want to assume he could get that chance either. The NICU team gave me a thumbs up before they left the room and told me baby's APGAR score was 9 out of 9, and that she looked great! I smiled and said thank you to them for making sure she was okay!
My doctor then told me that my uterus was really weird...I was like, "What does that mean?" He said that somehow because of my first c-section, my uterus was really thin and that it had practically no muscle. "It's a good thing we scheduled you for c-section at 37 weeks exactly, right after your shots to keep the baby in, bc if you had gone into labor...the old scar would have opened up and your baby wouldn't have made it. And you could've possibly hemorrhaged to death."
Before I could really process those words, a nurse said to me, "Alright mommy, we are gonna do some skin-to-skin!" And then I felt this small and chubby body put on me, and laughed and said, "Kev! She looks so Asian!" It had been a fun past time for us to talk about what our second daughter would look like, since we are both mixed (our daughters are 5/8 Filipina, 1/4 Austrian-French-Greek-English, and 1/8 Chinese) Unfortunately I felt like passing out so I couldn't hold onto baby as long as I wanted, so Kevin ended up holding her and I was content just staring at them as I laid on the table shivering as the pregnancy hormones left me. I just kept playing with the suction in my mouth, relieved baby and me were okay.
Later on, when baby was sleeping, Kevin and I talked about what it meant for us to have everything happen at the timing that it did. We pondered what this meant for us...for the past two months we had been worried about placenta accreta, a life-threatening risk, but really, uterine rupture had been the biggest threat for baby and me because of my weakened uterus? The whole purpose of the weekly progesterone shots was to keep the baby inside and prevent preterm labor, so once it ended at 36 weeks, the doctor said we needed to deliver this baby at specifically 37 weeks and 0 days. And what was going on with that umbilical cord around baby's neck when she was born? If she had been inside me a bit longer, would that have been a huge danger for her as well? I couldn't believe the small details and timing of everything, the fact that I was already prepped and ready for the operation when her heart beat started going down exactly at that time. The timing was seriously spot on.
A few months prior to the delivery, I had been at church listening to our pastor give a sermon and one story stuck out in my mind. It was about a man who had been in danger but wasn't harmed on a specific occasion, and when he had met with a friend he had shared about how God protected him. The friend then took out a prayer journal, and it showed that on that specific day and time, he was praying for divine protection for that specific man! It was a powerful illustration and reminder that God answers prayer and that we have a duty to intercede for one another. I had made it a point to pray for divine protection over this baby, and I knew so many of my friends and family had been praying too...Perhaps one of the biggest eye-opening realizations for us was that we wouldn't have been able to tell any of these things were happening until the actual delivery! How could we know that the umbilical cord was already around her neck? Or that my uterus was so weak it wouldn't have been able to handle a normal labor and delivery with contractions? I mean, we always knew the danger of uterine rupture, but the doctor said I was for sure one of those women who would've had it if I did go into labor. It wasn't just a theory. It was a reality we did not have to face. There were SO many variables to take into account. One of the more heartbreaking truths for us was knowing that since my uterus was so weak, if her twin had grown alongside her, one or two of them wouldn't have been able to grow up to full-term bc my uterus wouldn't have lasted in keeping both of them (or me) safe. Did God mercifully choose to protect this baby and me by taking her twin alongside Him in heaven so that I could be a wife to Kevin, and mom to the girls, for a longer amount of time here on Earth? I can't even begin to fathom the way this all worked out. God's ways are so mysterious. I'm just so thankful she's is here and that I can watch her grow alongside her sister.
And that leads us to her name. Kevin and I named her Elianna, which means "God answered." It was actually a challenge to find a name that could stand on its own next to Evangeline. Kevin was always saying, "Evangeline's name means 'good news.' Her name is basically gospel! We can't just name our second daughter something without a special meaning as well!" So it feels appropriate based on this entire pregnancy and birth story that Elianna is living up to her name. A lot of people asked us if we had wanted a son, but we actually had specifically prayed for another daughter. It was even harder to choose a middle name but we finally agreed on Praise, which means "to give glory to." I also have a friend named Praise who was very influential to me during my first few years in my Christian walk in college, so it has a sweet connotation in my mind. My friend Praise also sang worship during a lot of our AACF large group meetings so I actually am really hoping Elianna has a beautiful singing voice as well!
Here are some pics from Elianna's birth day:
Auntie Susie took this pic of us right before we went to the OR!
I couldn't believe I could hold her so quickly after she was born...
with Evangeline, we had to wait 9 days to do this!
Kevin getting ready to cut the umbilical cord
Kevin said she looked like a little sushi chef hehe!
First pic with the 3 of us
Elianna Praise, your name means "God answered our prayer, so we praise Him." Our continued prayer is that you grow healthy both physically and spiritually, learning to love the Lord alongside your older sister Evangeline. There would be no greater joy for your daddy and me than to watch you grow as sisters in Christ. We love you so much...God is so good to give you to us.
And just in case any of you are wondering, Evangeline is LOVING being a big sister!
My heart overflows with so much love for these two daughters of ours!
God is so good!
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