Miracle Baby # 2- Michael Melvin

Well, as most of you know by now we had our second child, another boy, and named him Michael Melvin Fenstermaker. He is perfectly healthy and safe at home now, as is mommy, and we are all learning the challenges and joys of being a family of four…who knew I would ever say that?!
We had our set of challenges through the pregnancy; I will spare the details since most of you have heard my complaints throughout anyway…haha. Anyway, and near the end of the pregnancy we also had some other concerns that led the doctor and us to decide to induce labor two weeks early.
The night before we were going into the hospital, Monday July 14th, we got some bad news about Adam’s father passing away, and that was another challenge in and of itself to cope with. I must add a note here that my dearest Adam handled his responsibilities with flying colors and was able to be there for me in every way possible. So, by means of comfort my mother told me she felt that Jared needed to go to heaven to see Michael and send him our way since he wouldn’t have the opportunity in this lifetime. This was very comforting, and as a funny side note, at the funeral Jason (Adam’s brother) mentioned he thought the 51 hours of labor was due to the fact that Jared just couldn’t stop talking and was keeping Michael there. This is especially funny for those of you who knew Jared because he was quite the talker, and really never wanted to stop a conversation, even if something pressing was about to happen, i.e. needing to get to earth!
All joking aside, it was a difficult, but blessed time and we wanted to also add a thank you to all of our friends and family members who were praying for us, we really felt that spirit with us. Also all those who helped us out, from the plane ticket to get Adam to the funeral (thanks mom and dad) to the love and support as Adam was away from his newborn son whom he only got to spend about 2 hours with before leaving.
The actual story of the labor is long and well, laborious, so I will try to shorten it and leave out any gross details. We went in on Tuesday morning 8:30 am and I was started on a very low dose medication to soften my cervix…this went on until the next morning at about 9 am when the doctor decided maybe I needed to be on the stronger medication. All the while I was on monitors and in a hospital bed, yuck. I would get up as much as they would let me and walk around the labor and delivery and postpartum wards and stretch on my labor ball. Anyway, after another 12 hours they finally started me on the Pitocin drip. This is the drug that actually induces labor, so count the hours where you like, but I was contracting the entire time. At this point they were monitoring Michael and eventually he became too overly distressed and they stopped the Pitocin and my body basically just took over by itself. I received an epidural sometime in the middle of the night/early morning and it began working, then was slightly ineffective like last time, and then I could basically feel a great deal of the labor pains, which I told them I wanted because I would have more control over the pushing. However, that’s when things got a little worrisome. The doctor on call was in the OR (Operating Room) and as I was telling them that I needed to push they were telling me I had to wait for my doctor. I continued to insist on pushing and the nurse finally told me I could try and she would see how serious I really was. So, after a couple of rounds of pushing she finally paged another doctor who had to run over from the office in the next building over to deliver me. By the way, for those of you who know me and my apprehensions, I did get the only one I was hoping not to have, which was the male one. By that time of course I did not care and after 20 minutes of pushing Michael was here!
Michael had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and was in continued distress, oh and was posterior, which means his head was facing down (hence the harsh back labor). So, the nurses worked on stimulating him, and the whole time no one really said more than “he just needs a little help”, “they’re just working on him” to me. I was in a panic waiting to hear my baby cry and when he did it was so faint I still was very confused. Basically he just had a hard time breathing at first, but very quickly recovered from an Apgar of 1 to a 7 and eventually a 9. From what the nurses and doctors tell me this is a very speedy recovery and he left with a clean bill of health.
So we are very happily at home now, struggling like I said with being a family of four, Adam’s crazy work schedule, my doctor being extra busy (thank heavens), and nursing, etc. We feel that our life is crazy at times, but we love it, would not trade it for anything, and feel especially blessed in all these things.Thanks again for the love, support, prayers, and phone calls, and please keep them coming, we need all the help we can get. We pray for you also and hope you and your families are well and very happy. Thank you for sharing in our sorrows and especially our joy at this time. Welcome to the world Michael Melvin Fenstermaker!!!