Hello everyone! I am so excited to announce the arrival of our beautiful daughter Ella Ruth Willis. She was born on July 24, 2009 at 1:55AM. She weighed 9lbs 2oz and was 22in long! Now, we know why i was measuring two weeks ahead! i birthed a 2 month old:) She made her arrival into this world on her Grandaddy Willis' birthday....i am glad she gets to share a birthday with him! he is a great man! Also, she is named after Shea's granny, Ella Rose Willis, and my mom, Ruthie Hammons!
I am excited to share our birth story because it turned out to be incredible. The lord's hand was evident the whole way through. My water broke on Thursday, July 23 around 4pm at the dog park:) From the moment my water broke, Shea was on an adrenaline rush. he was like, "we are in labor!!!!! what do we do?" I told him it would be awhile before we went to the hospital. so, we went home to labor at home. Shea wanted something to do....so, i had him start making a Caesar salad for dinner. I called our dear friend & labor and delivery nurse, Michelle and she said we could wait to go to the hospital until my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. at this point i was still not having contractions, so I sat down on the couch to reread my labor books.
After about a half hour, I went to the bathroom and noticed some color in the fluid. i did not think this was okay; so we called Michelle again. She said she did not want to alarm us but yes we did need to go to the hospital. At this point, i yell to Shea to stop making dinner because we needed to get loaded up to go to the hospital. We were on our way to the hospital when i had my first contraction. we pulled up to st. Francis eastside hospital, and i told Shea which door to let me off at. he was like are you sure this is the right door, and i told him yes they showed us in hospital tour (which he did not attend:). Sure enough, we walked through the doors to find a hospital tour ending and our dear friends Marc and Alysia Benjamin who we were in community group with and went through pregnancy together were there. it was so sweet of the Lord, because they came over to us and wrapped us in there arms and prayer for us!!! i went to the counter to check in and the lady could not find me on the list....she thought i was part of the class. I was in a hospital lobby full of pregnant women and I looked down at my stomach and said, " I am having my baby now!!!" She sent straight upstairs to check in.
I got into my room and got my gown on. then, Dr. chorness came in to check me. i was dilated 3cm and 70% effaced. She was only going to give me 4 hours to progress on my own because of the meconium being in the fluid. at this point, i was hooked up to an internal monitor on the baby and had fluid flushing me out internally. i was quickly loosing hope for a natural childbirth. i was confined to a bed and being on my back. after about an hour, a nurse came in to tell me that she was not sure if she was going to be my nurse but she wanted to be because she liked to get all the natural childbirths that came through the floor. sure enough, that angel became my nurse!! my birth story would be completely different if i did not have her!!! Praise the lord, i love how he works out all the details.
The nurse noticed that the baby was not very active and I was not progressing. so, she gave me some fluid in my iv to get the baby active (she called it Gatorade or sugar water.) At, 9PM i had only dilated one centimeter. My doctor wanted to start me on pitocin. I did not want to go the pitocin route. i trusted my labor & delivery nurse's opinion and asked her what she would do. she said to follow my doctor's suggestion, but to only get one drop every 1/2 hr. so, i did. i did not see an increase in my labor pain from the pitocin. however, after an hour, i had only progressed another centimeter.....they upped me to 2 drops every half of an hour.
At this point, it was 10pm and i was 5cm dilated. i specifically prayed and asked the lord to dilate me 3 cm in the next hour. i knew that i could make it and deliver naturally if i could get to 7 cm dialated. He did it! At 11 pm, i was 8cm dialated!! the nurses looked at Shea and told him that i had been nice so far but I was going to start saying things, get mean etc.... I never did..... We were fully dialated and effaced at midnight. We were so excited....we were going to have the baby on Shea's dad's birthday:) The baby was not fully engaged so we road through contractions for the next hour. the hardest hour because my body was wanting to start pushing but it was not time yet.
At 1pm, I started pushing. we pushed through about four contractions when the internal monitor came off of the baby. Therefore, the nurses were relying on me to tell them when i was ready to push. it was incredible. i knew i could not do this on my own. it is definitely scary at this point to think of the baby coming out. i just kept talking to the lord saying, you created my body for this and you created this baby. you know how it needs to come out....please direct it!!! they called in Dr. Chorness at this point. she was there for two pushes and an episiotomy and the baby came out at 1:55AM! Shea, the nurse, the Douala and I all yell what is it? however, the are so used to people knowing now that the doctor did not announce it. they had already taken the baby over to clean it up because of the meconium . so, Shea went over to get pictures and got to announce: IT'S A GIRL!!! I was in shock. i could not believe it. i looked at my Douala and said, I don't have bow for her hair.
Shea's parents were able to be there because they were in the car driving up to their cabin when i went into labor. so, they came to greenville instead. Ella Ruth Willis had arrived!! They got to come into the room and hold her and congratulate us! i was so thankful Shea had someone to go out to announce the arrival of our daughter to. My parents arrived in the afternoon from Ohio. We had so much great support and love shown to us by family and friends at the hospital and our last two weeks in Greenville!!! Thanks everyone for your love and support! We look forward to keeping you all updated on our new adventures as a family of 3:)
Last week, Ella and I traveled to Ohio & Michigan to visit my family. We were able to be there to celebrate both my brother and mom's birthdays! We asked mom what she wanted to do on her birthday. she wanted to plant her new raised garden. Dee, Ella and I were very excited to get to do this with mom. So we headed outside, got all our shovels, spades, and seeds and set to work. 
