Gracelyn's Delivery and Our Stay and the University Hospital

I have been very overwhelmed today by the things that I have been able to do over the last few days. Had I had my c-section I would just be being released this morning. Instead, I was able to be wheeled over with my baby as she transferred hospitals (instead of laying on the operating table), the following day I walked over to Primary's 3 times by myself, once really by myself in the middle of the night. Yesterday I walked the mall to take Mr. C to see Santa. I have been able to hold BOTH of my babies. I have overwhelming feelings of gratitude to my Heavenly Father for this huge blessing. I see it as nothing other that a blessing, something Heavenly Father knew I need to make this difficult time easier. It has been such a difficult decision not to have the c-section. I have stirred over it for months. I am very grateful to a team of doctors that made my VBAC successful. I have been seeing a team of perinatalogists over the last few months, not knowing if one of them or another doctor at the U would deliver our baby. The first time I met Doctor Draper at McKay Dee I knew he was the one I wanted. We created great relationships with other Doctors, but I felt something different about Dr. Draper. When we got to the hospital and found out the I really was in labor (after 6 days of awful contractions) the first question I asked was who the doctor was. No one knew who was on for that evening. We got in our room and finally the nurses told me that Dr. Draper was on until 7:00 the next morning. I wanted to cry. I knew I had a doctor that was confident in what he was doing and suddenly I became confident in what I was doing. He came to visit and told me he felt like all was going to go as planned. As the night progressed my body did all it was supposed to perfectly. Finally I got to a 9 and my contractions became to strong and too close together, the babies heart rate dropped. Immediately I was surround by several doctors and a team of ten trying to work on it. They decided they need to give me some medications to slow the contractions down. It worked. They gave me 2 hours to rest. I fell asleep for a bit with a nurse by my side not taking her eyes off of the babies heart rate. Next thing I knew I had a doctor in there telling me it was time to try. We began to push and she told me I had to stop. She said you are having this baby now and Dr. Draper said he wanted to make sure he was here with you. They went to wake him up and once he came in we pushed through 4 contractions and ten minutes later we had a baby. I was never given any drugs to advance labor, I had a team of patient doctors that knew exactly what they needed to do. I will forever be grateful to them. A nurse stood next to Doctor Draper with warm blankets. They let Jeff cut the cord and immediately handed Grace to the nurse all I got was a glimpse of black hair. They passed her through the window and we waited for them to stabilize her. Two minutes later a camera was passed through the window and they handed it to me. It had nearly 20 pictures of our new baby girl. They took pictures of her for us since we were unable to. I am so grateful to them to allow us to have record of that special moment. As the doctors were cleaning things up they told me that they never would have guessed that was my first time and that so many women would love to have such an easy delivery. If we have any more children I will do all I can to have my baby at the University Hospital. Everything was PERFECT! The nurses and doctors were amazing, all the staff was great, the food was not hospital food, it was so good. I loved it! I couldn't have asked for a better experience in delivering a baby.