Do you remember the Texas snowstorm of 2021?
Yeah, me too. I was very pregnant!
I know many of you loved our gender reveal fail story so I am finally writing Finlee’s birth story - 1 year later.
As I recall, it started snowing at our house on February 14th and we lost power that night or early the next day. Thankfully, my parents still had power and running water. We packed up our then 4-year-old, all our necessities, and hospital bags.
This was taken on February 16th, just two days before I would give birth.
I was scheduled for an induction on February 18th, but with the road conditions, my doctor told us to come in as soon as we wanted to on the 17th. We went in that evening and everything was going great. I absolutely love the Labor & Delivery staff at Medical City Weatherford. It’s also where I had my son (best experience ever. I wanted to have another baby right away).
The only Covid procedure in the place was a simple question at check-in: “Do you have it?” and you couldn’t have any guests besides your push partner.
It started feeling pretty cold in our labor room. The air was blowing and we couldn’t figure out why they would have the AC on when it was FREEZING outside.
Labor
We started the induction process at about midnight. It began to get even colder and my labor hormones made it absolutely unbearable. I was shaking and they kept pilling warm blankets on top of me.
The nurse finally came in and told us that the heater in the hospital was broken!
Epidural
A few hours later I was feeling great, not really feeling much of my contractions (same experience with my first). I had almost convinced myself not to get an epidural when a SCREAMING laboring mother came busting in the room next to us, and not 1 minute later we heard the sweet sounds of a baby crying. Our nurse told us she had called the anesthesiologist for her, but he didn’t make it in time for the baby to get there. He was already at the hospital at this point, so I decided to go ahead and get my epidural that way I didn’t have to wait on him again.
Not one poke, but TWO and we got the epidural in. He said it wasn’t my fault, but I was still shaking from being so cold.
Immediately after he left my blood pressure dropped. I felt like I was going to faint, throw up, and fall asleep all at the same time. I have had absolutely no history of high or low blood pressure, but the epidural apparently set it off. My doctor came in to check on me and he decided to slow down the Pitocin until my blood pressure got back on track.
Sidenote
The reason I had to be induced was that I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes with both pregnancies, even though my blood sugars were always normal or super low. He let me go really close to my due date, because there wasn’t a chance I would have a big baby, and I was also at a healthy weight. My doctor thought it humorous that I had better levels than he did. Me not so much, because I still had to check my sugars daily. My doctor ended up letting me have peanut butter and crackers because my blood sugar was so low before giving birth. I even had a piece of cake before I went to the hospital - LOL
After we got my blood pressure stabilized, we started the labor process back up again.
I was in labor for 17 hours. When she was ready to make her appearance, she came with an easy 3 pushes.
The crazy continues
The next day we were so ready to go home. We hadn’t been home for a few days before we even went in because we had no power. We got a notification that our power had been restored so we headed home to find out our water was off. We ended up staying the night because it was so late. The next day we headed back to my parents for several more days. Due to the fact that there was a boil notice because of all the frozen main breaks from the storm. I wasn't about to boil my water every time I needed to clean my pump. Sheesh!
We took our brand new baby home to a house full of 8 people (my grandparents had lost power too, so they were also there). I'm so glad I had the extra time spent with my Dad as he just passed away in October of 2021. You should always try and find good in a situation because you just never know why you were put there.
What a week, but what a beautiful girl we have!
Finlee June
2/18/21
5:08 pm
5 lbs 15 oz - 19’ long
And look at her now - our rainbow baby!
We had the absolute best experience shooting Finlee's one year session with Samantha Cooper Photography out of Aledo, TX - See more here.
The Bailee Ann - Texas Blogger