Vivian Lee Custer

Vivian Lee Custer born December 16th 2008 at 10:25 a.m.

On Monday night (December 15th) at 10:30 I started to have back pain, which is not unusual. Through my entire pregnancy I have had back pain....Monday night it was getting worse, so much so that I ran a bath to make me feel better. After I got out of the bath, I crawled into bed but could not get comfortable. The back pain continued as I tried to walk-it-off. I woke up Lance around midnight and told him about the pain and had him call my doctor who happened to be on-call that night.

She asked what the pain was like in my abdomen and I told Lance to tell her that the back pain was so bad that I could not feel the pain in my abdomen at all. In fact, the pain was so bad I felt like someone could have sawed off my leg and I would not have felt it.

My doctor, Dr. Flom instructed us to go to the hospital to get checked out. We arrived and after walking forever from the emergency room entrance to the birthing ward, being admitted, I was checked and I was only 3 cent. dilated. The nurses wanted me to walk around the hospital for an hour to see if this would dilate me even further. After walking the empty halls of the hospital for 15 min I could not take the pain and returned to the birthing ward to lay down. After being checked again, the dilatation had not progressed so after consulting with my doctor we decided to induce labor even further. Dr Flom gave me Pitocin to induce labor and she manually had to break my water. The pain intensified and the anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural. I was scared to have the epidural but it actually hurt more when they put my IV in my arm that the epidural was. After 10 min I was numb from the waist down and just had to wait for my cervix to dilate to 10 cent. This took a few hours. At around 9:00 the epidural started to wear off and I could feel true labor pains which were horrible. I know that everyone says that you forget the pain but I have not forgotten what the pain feels like yet. I was given more pain medication and and began to feel pressure. After being "pumped up" by Lance (picute attached of my punching in the air), I started pushing at 10:00 and delivered Vivian Lee Custer at 10:25 a.m.

I think Lance and I were in shock when they set her on my stomach. We could not believe that we were finally meeting the baby who kicked and sucked her thumb in my tummy.

Vivian is a beautiful baby girl who loves to cuddle and has a great temperament. She has a full head of hair and long fingers and skinny long legs. She loves to kick and push with her feet.

We all love to sit and just stare at her and watch all of her facial movements. It has been 10 days now since she was born and she has changed so much.