I'm 29, I've been married to a wonderful man for almost 9 years, and together we have a 5 year old daughter and a newborn son (9/22/0 .

http://mcclennyfam.blogspot.com/ (pictures of my belly and my baby girl and soon my baby boy)



Layla's birth story....

Around 2am August 18th 2003 my contractionshad gotten strong enough that I could no longer sleep thru them. About 9am Icalled my midwife and she told me to come in.When Igot to the hospital my midwife was busysomewhere else so they checked me into a hospital room andhooked me up to a monitor to see where my contractions were.My midwife came in about ahalf hour laterand checked me. I was only 1cm so she told me to walk around and she would come back and check me in three hours. When she came back I hadn't progressed so she sent me home with some sleep medication and told me to call her if my contractions got any closer. So I went home and took the pill but I only slept for a few hours before my contractions woke me up again. Unfortunately they were still uneven so I just worked thru them till about 12am when I started throwing up and bleeding. About 1am I called my midwife andshe told me to come in.When I got there I threw up againso they hooked me up to a glucose IV and my midwife checked me. I had been in labor for about 24 hours and I was only 3cm so she checked me into the hospital and gave me two more sleeping pills so I could get some rest so my body could reset itself and start working right. About 8am she checked me again and I still hadn't progressed any further so I was sent home AGAIN. I was very discouraged by this point. I had been in labor for about 32 hours and hadn't progressed more than 3cm. I started bleeding again during the day and the pain got progressively worse and I got progressively more depressed. Finally I told my husband that I was done and that I might as well just get drugs since my body wasn't cooperating and I wasn't gonna get my natural birth anyway. So I called midwife again and told her that we were coming in. When we got there she checked me and I was 7-8 cm!! I was so happy!My body hadFINALLY gotten on track. My water still hadn't broken and my midwife was concerned about the possibility of melicom since I had been in labor for so long so I agreed to let her break it. After that I progressed fairly quickly. I was in the shower running water on my back when the urge to push took over and I was having a real hard time resisting. I told the nurse and they moved me down to the Birth Center. My midwife came and checked me again and saidI could start pushing. I tried a bunch of positions but ended up on my back since I made the most progress that way. My bladder was really full and was blocking the baby way since I hadn't been able to pee in couple hours because my baby was sitting on it. So my midwife gave me a partial catheter and emptied it. After that it was a lot easier. All together I ended up pushing for about two hours before I was able to get her out. I kept pushing her out and she kept slipping back in. Which at the time was very frustrating but kept me from tearing. It was also a little amusing becasue my mom was screaming about seeing ears and the nose and stuff. Finally I got all of her out and my midwife held her up. My baby was finally here!! I couldn't believe how big she was though....and neither could anyone else in the room.I had just pushed out an 8.5 lb baby!! My midwife layed her on my chest and I just stared at her. I couldn't believe I was finally holding my little girl. It was a truly amazing experience.

The end of Ethan'sstory......(2nd miscarriage)

On Tuesday April 24th 2007 I went to my prenatal appt. for my monthly visit and none of the 3 midwives could find babies heartbeat. So on Wednesday my midwife came to my house to check again but still no luck. We went to the hospital to get checked and that is when the hell began. See I am positive person so I was sure that everything was fine and that when they put the ultrasound wand on my belly we would find that my baby had just been hiding. Unforunatly, that is not what happened. Instead, they found that it had died. Not exactly the words I was expecting to hear nor ever wanted to. It happens everyday but I never expected it to happen to me. And if that wasn't bad enough I had to stay in the hospital to be induced because I had a 100.4 feverdue toan infection in the fluid (or so they thought)that needed to be treated before it spread. So I was hooked up to IVs and given antibiotics and given some stuff to start my contractions and told that by morning I would hopefully deliver. Since I was only 20 weeks it ended up taking two doses to get my contraction going but when they finally did, they took off. I took some pain meds but they did little to nothing. Ethan Michael was born around3pm on Thursday afternoon. He was a litlle over7 inches and weighed half a pound. He apparently was twisting around andthe umbillical cord (which had some defect) got kinked up and he stopped growing around 17-18 weeks. He was so tiny but still beautiful. I thought I was all over and I would get to go home and mourn. But luck was not on my side with that either. My pacenta got stuck in my cervixso after trying to push it out4-5 hours and passing out on the bathroom floor I went to the OR and they removed it. Then of course we had to stay overnight and most of the next day. It was a horrible experience I would never wish on anyone.

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