My long journey to mother hood

If you read my previous story then you know I’ve had 2 very rough and hard pregnancies after I had Madelyn I had her 2 year old sister Emmalynn who was born with only 30% of her skin and then I had Raelyn who was born with anencephaly and only lived 23 days. I’m currently writing Emmalynns story (The miraculous healing of Emmalynn Upchurch)and I already wrote the short version of Raelyns story but here is there big sister Madelyns story I can’t write about her sisters without writing about her it’s just not fair. I wrote this when she was about 5 years old she will be turning 9 here on Feb 4th 1 day before Raelyns passing. This year will be hard but we will get through this as a family! Anyways here is Madelyns birth story.

It was January 31st, 2012. I was at my last prenatal doctor's appointment, he finally said it was time for me to be admitted to the hospital to be induced, his words were music to my ears. I was so excited! I was finally going to have my baby girl! I was two weeks overdue and thought she was going to be cooking forever.

Day one, the date was February 1st, 2012. I got to the hospital at about 6pm with my husband. We got signed in and went to our room where they hooked me up to a monitor and gave me IV’s. I thought, today is the day! Boy was I wrong. My nurse was very friendly she gave me a pill to jump start labor, nothing happened. I was told to try and get some sleep. Sleeping in a hospital is almost impossible! The nurse kept coming in to make sure everything was OK, the machine I was connected too was really loud, and to top it off my husband was sound asleep snoring as loud as he could. Somehow I finally managed to fall asleep.

Day two, February 2nd, I woke up and had some breakfast and my mom showed up to keep me company. I was told to go for a walk because it might jump start labor, so that's what we did. Nothing happened I didn't go into labor at all that day. The doctor decided to try and separate the baby’s sac from my cervix to see if that would help things get moving farther along. The pain was bad after that so I got a shot of fentanyl and an ambien, I slept good that night. Still not in labor.

Day three, February 3rd wasn't very eventful, it was a lot like day two, nothing happening. The nurse told me the doctor might have to send me back home for awhile. I was crushed, here I was two weeks overdue and have been on labor inducing medication for three days and I still wasn't any closer to having her then when I first got to the hospital. Luckily the doctor didn’t send me home. I begged him for a c section, but he said he wanted to give me a fair chance at having a natural birth.

Day four, February 4th, 2012. After being in the hospital for four days, I was starting to feel a little discouraged. I wanted my baby girl in my arms already. Finally they turned the pitocin dose up and broke my water then it happened the most unbearable pain I have ever felt in my life. For hours I was screaming in pain. I got a shot of fentanyl every hour and it didn’t even touch the pain. I felt so bad for the people around me, I hit my mom in the face because she got too close to me , it was awful. Once I was able to get the epidural it was smooth sailing. I was finally dilated to ten and it was time to push one, two, three! Three pushes and she was out and placed into my arms. She was absolutely beautiful she had all ten fingers and ten toes. She weighed 6 pounds and 13 ounces and she was 19 inches long. I named her Madelyn Mae. I couldn't believe after all this time, she was finally out! My life has drastically changed since she has been in my life. Motherhood isn’t as easy as I thought it would be but it's worth it. Madelyn is five now and is still as stubborn as can be, but she is the love of my life and I wouldn't trade her for the world.