Katherine Frost Broyles has arrived!
Katherine Frost Broyles was born on Wednesday, February 22nd at 6:47pm. She weighed in at exactly 6 pounds and is 18.5 inches long. Though smaller than expected, she is perfectly healthy. She has very blonde hair and dark blue eyes which is no surprise.
We are both doing well and she is a very healthy girl though Wednesday did not progress exactly as planned. We were three days past our due date and I had my weekly doctor’s appointment. When I had all my weekly testing and measurements, my blood pressure was high whereas it has always been perfect. The nurse said that the doctor would probably order blood work and if it showed that I had preclampsia then he would probably induce on Friday (the day he is on call).
As I was waiting for the doctor to come in, I sat on the table praying about this. We had planned and prepared for a natural, unmedicated childbirth and had not wanted to be induced. My main prayer was that our decision would be clear and that Sam and I would agree with the doctor’s recommendation. The doctor did in fact recommend that we get blood work done, but he also suspected that the baby had turned in the last week because he felt a hand or a foot as the presenting part. Therefore, he sent me over to a specialist to have an ultrasound. When I had the ultrasound three things were discovered. First, she had in fact turned into the “complete breech” position, meaning her butt and her feet were down in a way that she was in affect sitting Indian style. Second, when the doctor measured her, he said that she was no longer gaining weight or growing. He estimated that she was 6 pounds, 5 ounces but not adding more weight. Last, my amniotic fluid was getting low. Because of these three things, he suggested that we deliver now and because she was breech, it was to be by c-section.
Well, my prayer for clarity of a decision was answered, but not how I wanted. Given her lack of growth, we agreed that we should not wait and given her position, c-section was the way it was going to happen. Since I had wanted an unmedicated birth, this was in effect a “worst case scenario” for us, but amazingly I had a great attitude about it. I think because this decision was black and white. The most important thing was that I have a safe delivery of a healthy baby and that was accomplished. I had experienced an easy and very healthy pregnancy but 100 years ago, it would have ended with a hard labor that would have most likely not progressed and possibly ended in death of the baby and me. So, we were thankful that we had the option of a c-section.
That set the day into motion of being admitted and waiting until the c-section could be performed. It was not what I wanted, but I will say, a c-section does have some advantages. It is pretty quick and given the epidural, painless. I did not have a single contraction or labor pain (which I did want to experience at least a little). Best of all, our post-partum pictures are great because my little girl does not have a cone head and I still had on all my make up since I had not endured labor.
People have asked how we came up with the name Katherine Frost. Both names are family names. Katherine was Sam’s mom’s first name. She passed away when he was 8 and we wanted to honor her memory in this way. Frost is the first name of my dad’s mother and grandmother. Both women are special family members and we hope that our little girl will share many of their character qualities. An interesting, but obviously unplanned coincidence is that both of these women passed away the same week that our little girl was born (but not this year).