Blaise Emmanuel

18 days ago we welcomed Blaise Emmanuel Schaal into the world at 4:05am on Oct 21, 2015. He was quick to arrive but rather smooth compared to Anneliese's birth. As you all know (I'm sure the only people who follow my blog are either family members or instagram followers) we were quite anxious for this little ones arrival...seeing as he made us wait a week past his due date. Andrew's parents had already come and gone and my parents were going to be leaving Saturday. I was worried we weren't going to give birth and then not have family here to watch the kids.


We went for a walk after my last prenatal appointment

However, at our last prenatal appointment which was on Tuesday, our midwife stripped my membranes which lead to some cramping around dinner time and started some contractions around 8pm. They weren't hard contractions but definitely consistent so I started timing them and they were 4 minutes apart for 2 hrs. We didn't do anything about them cause I could talk and walk thru them....they weren't getting harder or anything like that so we went to bed. At which point they slowed down and I got about 45 minutes of sleep...could have been more however Malachi AND Anneliese didn't sleep too good the first part of the night. Up until about 12:30 Anneliese was in our bed with us because she wouldn't sleep. She NEVER comes in the bed with us so she just thought it was play time and thought it was fun to kick around the bed the whole time...until I had had enough and told Andrew to take her to her room. At this point my contractions started up again and these were the real deal. Unlike Anneliese's birth when the contractions started really intense and progressed quickly, these started slower but harder than the contractions earlier in the night and progressed at a slower rate. So I told myself it wasn't going to be a quick labor and delivery...I felt blessed to ease into the painful contractions and felt I could keep my cool a lot better than last time. I stayed awake and proceeded to "snapchat" my sisters, since they are on west coast time and still up. Once the contractions got closer and harder, I woke Andrew up (who was sleeping in the kids room...remember I had sent him away with Anneliese? Well she was sleeping soundly by now, thank goodness) and we called the midwife; she was at a different hospital with a patient and told us to call back when we felt it was time to head to the hospital where we were going to deliver. After getting off the phone I decided I wanted to wait a while longer and labor at home instead of getting to the hospital too early. By now the contractions had been 4 minutes apart for 2 or 2.5 hrs and lasting 45 seconds. About a half hour later I felt it was time to head to the hospital.


Snapchat picture I sent to my sisters, right before leaving

The drive there was actually really smooth, It's never fun laboring in the car but the 15 minute drive wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Of course walking up to the maternity unit is never one of my favorite things to do while laboring but at least it was in the middle of the night so there were not many people and we made it just fine. I had to sign/date/time some papers at the front desk, so I remember exactly what time that was: 3:40am. We got to our room, I gave a urine sample (dumbest thing in the world to ask a laboring woman but I managed to successfully give them what they wanted although challenging). I felt nauseous at this point and dry heaved a couple of times (sorry if I'm giving too many details) and got back into the bed in our room. Soon after my midwife showed up and my water broke. Contractions were getting to the point where it was pretty hard to breathe through them. Then I felt like pushing...our midwife checked me and I was 9cm. She said if I felt like pushing to go ahead and do so. I was confused because I had been so used to the dr's in my previous births telling me exactly what to do but the midwife was just letting me do whatever I wanted. I asked how I could push if I wasn't fully dilated and she responded with, "this is your third baby, you will push yourself to full dilation!"  I went a couple of contractions without pushing because I just didn't feel ready for some reason. But then felt the dreaded stretching "down there" which meant it was time to push. With the next contraction we delivered the head and then the contraction after that the shoulders and rest of the body, exactly 25 minutes after signing the papers at the front desk.

The midwife put the baby on my chest and told Andrew to check to see if we had a boy or girl. He looked and said he thought it was a boy with some uncertainty. The midwife made a comment about there being some sort of "mass" which I saw down by our little baby's "privates" but she didn't seem too concerned so I continued to hold our little Blaise Emmanuel (the name we had picked out since Anneliese's pregnancy). However, shortly after, the nurses had called in the pediatrician to take a look at the mass. She looked him over said that he was a completely healthy baby but didn't know exactly what the mass was...at some point they determined it was his bladder and he had what is called Bladder Exstrophy. They took him to NICU, with Andrew close by. It was weird to be in the delivery room without my husband and/or baby but I very much enjoyed my midwives company as she cleaned me up. Protocol says after 2 hrs mom can leave the delivery room...however my sweet nurse said I could go to the NICU after 1 hr. That hour went by quick and I soon made it to the NICU to see our adorable son. Normally you'd think it'd be terrifying to see your newborn baby in the NICU but it wasn't that scary. I mean he was a completely healthy baby, breathing on his own...everything was working, he just had an exposed bladder.

 

 

 

 

Add another almost 9 lb baby to our repertoire! Can you believe all of my children
have been just about the exact same size??

I know you probably want to know more details about his condition and surgery but this post is dedicated just for Blaise's arrival.

 

Again I have to give all the credit to my amazing husband, and St. Gerard who is the patron saint of expecting mothers and unborn children who I prayed a novena for a safe and smooth delivery.

 

Blaise Emmanuel Schaal

8lbs 14 oz, 21inches