Scout - A Birth Story

The more kids I get, the more messed up I am. Sometimes I think my brain is mush. Scout is having the next birthday, so I thought I would be smart and tell her birth story today so I could just link to it in a couple of weeks. You know some of the birth stories were unique, so they are much easier to remember than others. With Scout I was a little shaky on the exact story, so I pulled out her baby book to help me.

Unfortunately, that’s about the time I realized that I had already told part of this story…except that I told you it was Curly! So I have refreshed my memory (with the baby books) and changed Curly’s story and now I’m telling you Scout’s.

Scout was originally due December 1, 2005. When it became evident that she had absolutely no intentions of coming on her own, my doctor and I started discussing induction. This wasn’t a surprise since I’d had the last 5 babies induced about a week before they were born. With Scout it was a little tricky since Thanksgiving was right there in the middle. We ultimately decided to be proactive and avoid missing our turkey dinner by having her the day before. And to add to all the stress, my sweetie had started a new job on Monday and Scout was born on Wednesday. It would just be easier if he didn’t have to take quite so much time off and he already had Thursday and Friday free.

So on Monday, we had an early celebration with all the family. On Wednesday, we dragged ourselves out bright and early and headed for the hospital. I guess nobody wanted to induce the day before the holiday, because it was slow and we were started right away. They had a new kind of Pitocin and it was working well. I told the nurse that when I reached a 7, I would go really fast. My doctor lived about 10 minutes away and I definitely wanted him there. (This is the part I messed up, I had been thinking this was Curly.)

When the nurse announced 7, I told her to call the doctor, but since I had taken so long to get there, she didn’t listen. Five minutes later I pushed the button…HARD. She checked me again and the baby was crowning and she hadn’t even called the doc yet! She actually told me to “just squeeze my knees together and everything would be fine…” It’s a good thing I’d had an epidural and I couldn’t get out of bed...

But she was right, Scout managed to stay put until the doctor got there.  According to the nursing staff, she was the “most beautiful baby in the hospital.” She had tons of black hair and grayish blue eyes that eventually became a hazy blue.

My sweetie spent the rest of the evening with us and then he returned home to check on the kids and get them settled for the night. He usually didn’t spend the night at the hospital, so this was no big deal. After all, I had my sweet little one to hold and cuddle…at least until they came in to tell me that she had tested positive for Coombs disease and she would have to be under lights. I was devastated! I could only take her off for short periods for nursing and then she had to go right back on.

The night was miserable and the dawning of Thanksgiving Day was much worse. I tried to remind myself that I was thankful for so many things; all my kids who were happy and healthy and currently enjoying a nice Thanksgiving dinner at Bossy and Gamer’s house while I ate processed turkey and dehydrated potatoes. The tears streamed down my face as I reminded myself that I had ASKED for this. Then I looked across the hospital room at my sweet little darling snoozing peacefully under the blue lights and I tried to remember that this was but a moment and soon we would be home and together.

We stayed in the hospital a day longer than normal with the promise that we would bring her back for more testing on Tuesday. We had one last scare when they told us the numbers hadn’t dropped as they should and if they continued to climb she would be back in the hospital, but thankfully they were down the following day and they stayed down.

Having a baby during the holiday season was crazy at best! There were so many things to worry about and we hadn’t done any shopping or anything before her birth. But she was an amazing gift for our family and I’m so thankful that she is part of my life.