Introducing Baby Clara

Clara Nikole Wilkins

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

8 lbs. 12 oz.

21 1/2 inches

1:52 p.m.

Wow, we will have a great story to tell Clara about her birth when she gets older.

Clara's due date was 4/12/11 and Jimmy was out of town in Spain due to come back on 4/9/11. He was working on a project that was due to go live on April 1st. Giving him only a week before he was coming home to make sure it was all up and running without too many problems. Leading up to this week I was here at mom and dad's house (where we are currently living until our move to Spain this coming June) trying to keep the kids and I busy. I kept trying to tell Jimmy I wanted him home sooner without making him feel bad, but I really felt I needed him here. One week before my due date I went into the doctor to get checked and after he checked my cervix he said "Do you want me to walk you over to the hospital right now?" I was a little caught off guard. He said I was dilated to 3 1/2 cm's. I told him that Jimmy was still in Spain until Saturday (this was a Tuesday), and the doctor said that he didn't think I would make it that long. I said what if I try to go on bed rest and wait. Dr. Behne was fine with me going home to try and wait for my husband to get home, the doctor thought I'd be back at the hospital in 24-48 hours.

Right after leaving the doctor’s visit I called Jimmy freaking out and crying. I told him the doctor didn't think he would make it home in time. Then Jimmy said "Well it's a good thing that I'm at the airport". He wanted to surprise me by coming home a couple of days early, but with the change of events he decided to tell me. It was still going to take him until the next day to get home so I just had to wait 24 hours.

I went home and my mom did her best to let me rest. That night I had a lot of contractions but they stayed irregular enough that it didn't get me too worried. The next morning I wanted to get as much done before Jimmy got home as I could. I cleaned three bathrooms, did some laundry, and just kept busy. Then went and picked Jimmy up from the airport without telling the kids. Jimmy and I got home and surprised the kids that their dad was home. They were pretty excited to see their dad. We also had company for dinner that night, a missionary that was heading home and his dad was here to pick him up, and my dad was heading out the next morning for a turkey hunt and his hunting buddy was there too. After everything settled down and we got to bed my contractions started again. I took some Tylenol PM to try and get some sleep. I kept waking up every now and then with a stronger contraction here and there and would lie awake to see how far apart they were, they kept staying in the 8-10 minute range. Then around 4:30 they were at 5 minutes apart, I waited for another 20 minutes to make sure before I woke up Jimmy. I then woke him up and said let’s get ready for the day, but we need to get to the hospital. So we got up and packed and we were ready by 6 a.m. to go, we were able to see the kids before we left, they were up with all the hustle and bustle. Grandma stayed behind to take care of the kids.

On our way to the hospital I didn't have a single contraction (they had stayed right around 5 min's since 4:30), I was thinking to myself "Great just Great". We went in any ways, they checked me in to a small room checked me and said I was right at a 4, and they put a monitor on me to check the contractions and they finally kicked back in, but they were staying at 8 minutes. They watched them for a half hour and then they told me to walk for 30 minutes to see if we could get the contractions a bit closer. We walked for about 15 minutes and we came around the corner and there was my doctor. He just laughed and told me "I told you so" and was happy to see Jimmy made it home. He then looked at the nurse and said "Get her a room already!" The ball got rolling they got me into a room, IV, test results, and before the doctor headed into the office he broke my water. They gave me Pitocin to get it going a bit faster and we played the waiting game. Got my epidural and life was great. The doctor came back at the beginning of his lunch hour and I was only at a 6(but they said that the baby had lots of hair, they could feel it already), so they upped the Pitocin a bit more moved me around and an hour later I was ready to roll. The doctor told the nurse to not let me push until he was there (I don't have to push for long at all). They paged the doctor and he was there within 5 minutes, they set up the show and I started pushing. Clara was born less than 15 minutes of the doctor walking into the room, and he was gone less than 10 minutes later. The nurse could hardly believe how quick I could push. The delivery went so smoothly. Clara came in healthy as could be. She was a sight for sore eyes. I was so glad to have her out.

This is just another event in my life where I can say I am truly blessed. I must be doing things that the Lord approves of. He was able to bring my family all together just in time for the birth of this sweet baby. Jimmy made it home with 20 hours to spare.

We are 4 weeks out now and this little girl has been such a blessing to our family. We hadn't planned on her, but I wouldn't change having her in our lives for anything. She is a very sweet baby. She gets a bit fussy, but she sure does sleep pretty good for a little one.

Thanks for reading our story, I'll be getting to another Spain update soon! Love you guys!

Here are some more pictures.