aDvEnTuReS oF kOkO bEaN & BaBy V: Blessed by a Brother

It's official. We are now a family of FOUR! Six, if you count the dogs. Just six years, and sixteen days after Koko Bean graced us with her presence, Baby V came into our world.

His birth was completely different than Koko Bean's Birth. While last time I was clueless, I totally knew what to expect this time. Ha! Yeah right! Koko Bean was an easy pregnancy. Baby V was not. I wasn't sick this time, but just sort of felt "icky" at night and we had a few scares with torn placenta and a cyst that sent me to the ER. Koko Bean was vertex by thirty weeks. After 30 weeks, we tried to get a 3D ultrasound with Baby V, thinking he'd be ready for his closeup. Nah. He was still breech and had his head buried in his own little womb pillow, otherwise known as placenta. After I tried everything short of hanging upside down to get him to turn, we tried the 3D ultrasound a couple weeks later. He did not budge. He did manage to open his eyes and glare at us for a second.

From stinky oils to unorthodox exercises, I tried everything to get this kid to flip. At 37 weeks, on New Year's Eve, push came to shove and we had to make a decision to try an external cephalic version. This natural, "crunchy" mama was not thrilled about getting an epidural, nor was I confident the version would be good for my baby. After hours and hours of research, I had to trust my doctor and go for it. Thankfully, Dr. O was able to wrestle sweet Baby V enough to get his little body bottoms up and we we all celebrated. I thought for sure, this was going to induce labor in the next couple days.

NOPE!!

Baby V was not convinced the outside world was ready for him yet. Maybe he was waiting for a special date? I mean, after all, practically my whole family was all born in January. My dad was born on the second, my mother-in-law was the fifth, Sissy Koko Bean is the sixth, and that's just the first week!! My due date was January 16th, (my great aunt's birthday.) My last day of work was January 15th.

January 16th came. January 16th went. So did the 17th, 18th and 19th. I was adamant about not being induced and I was going to go without an epidural like I had done with Koko Bean. However, on January 19th, my doctor and I came to the realization baby V was going to have to be politely evicted from his comfortable sanctuary, and we scheduled an induction for January 22nd. January 22nd was the day before Baby V's great grandfather's 90th birthday. January 22nd is also that wonderful man's mother's birthday. Baby V was born on the same day as the matriarch of my dad's family. I could not have thought of a more special day.

Getting induced seemed like a horrible ordeal in my eyes. I had heard about labor pains coming faster and stronger and all these terrible stories about how it didn't work. To say I was anxious, was an understatement. Thankfully, I was at a hospital with an incredibly competent staff. I did not experience anything, but harder and faster labor pains, so I opted for the epidural. I really didn't want my baby drugged, but I also didn't want to put him through stress. To be quite frank, I was over being pregnant and didn't want to prolong this process any longer. I even got to take a nap. That's when the cool stuff happened.

I fell asleep around 1pm, knowing I was dilated to 3cm. At around 3pm or so, I woke up to a warm hand on my shoulder, and a feeling of someone standing over me. I looked up to where I thought someone was standing. No one was there. I asked my husband if he or a nurse had stood there. He said no one had. My mom was sleeping in a chair next to me and woke up, hearing me talk about this. At that moment, we both started crying. We knew who was there. My daddy had come to tell me it was time. I had the nurse check me and I had dilated to 6cm. Everything happened very fast after that. Even though I know he held him before God placed him in my womb, I can only imagine the joy on his face when his grandson was born just an hour and a half later.

This little boy was sent as a special gift to remind me of God's love. On Sunday, Baby V will be blessed by our church. This will be almost exactly a year after we found out we were expecting him. Though it took me a while to share this story, I just couldn't seem to find the words. We are incredibly blessed by our newest little Gift. Now, I get to be a mommy to beautiful daughter and a handsome son. I can't wait to watch these two grow up together.