Meet Baby Carmendy

The newest Baby Kopp is here! We’re so excited to share the news of her arrival, which was quite the event.

Even though she arrived only a few hours after her due date, being my usual unprepared self, she took me by surprise. I was convinced she would be a late baby. While eating dinner the night before she was born, I told Richard that we had at least another week. I felt none of the regular false contractions or increasing pressure that I experienced with Owen during the days before his birth. I did not feel ready, did not feel a sense of calm before the storm. And I was becoming increasingly confident that I was carrying another boy. I just KNEW the baby was going to be a late arrival and a big boy.

I was wrong on both counts. So much for maternal instincts.

Thus, I went to bed last Friday without any concerns about going into labor. In fact, we were planning to head to the shore for the weekend the following morning. Thankfully, I did have enough sense to throw together some things for my hospital bag while packing for our weekend shore getaway.

Around 2:45 am, I was awakened by Owen calling out “Mommy! Mommy!” He recently learned how to escape from his crib, so I went to his room to put him back to bed. I picked him up and held him for a moment, but I quickly had to put him down because of a sudden contraction. I instantly knew that it wasn’t a false contraction. I left Owen in his crib, even though he was still wide awake and asking for a sippy cup.

Richard was downstairs letting Walter outside to relieve himself. Like any ordinary 21st century person, I sent him a text message: “I think something is happening. Please come upstairs.” I didn’t want to walk downstairs since I felt sure our very awake and alert son would climb out of his crib again in a minute. I waited a few minutes; Richard did not respond and Owen had not yet stirred. Realizing my contractions were already coming regularly and less than 10 minutes had passed since I had woken, I decided to venture downstairs.

I found Richard washing dishes while waiting for Walter to do his business. Yes, he’s weird like that. And, yes, we have a dishwasher but have never used it, not even once.

I told him that I was having contractions and that this might be it. Richard’s reaction? He looked unimpressed and went back to finishing the dishes.

A couple minutes later, when all of our dishes were clean, I told Richard we should call my mom and tell her to come to our house to watch Owen in case we needed to go to the hospital. Down at the shore, my mother was over an hour away from our house. She told us to call my dad, who was only 20 minutes away; he could watch Owen until my mom got there.

After calling J Diddy, we started timing the contractions. They were happening about every 90 seconds and lasting about a minute, getting longer and more painful each time. Around 3:30am we called my doctor, who called us back a few minutes later and told us to head to the hospital, which is about 20 minutes from our house.

Richard immediately started gathering our bags and necessities for the hospital, getting us ready to go as soon as my dad got there. I paced around, since the contractions were too painful for me to stand still. Thinking that I still had hours and hours of labor ahead of me – I’d only been having contractions for an hour so far – I started to panic. The first hour of labor with Owen was nowhere near as intense and painful as this. Even though I had been hoping to deliver our second baby naturally, I was quickly changing my mind and told Richard that I was going to need an epidural immediately when we got to the hospital.

Luckily, J arrived quite fast despite the fact that he’s notorious for being slow. My parent’s dog Maggie was with him and Maggie and Walter started running around barking. Owen was still sleeping through all this.

I suddenly started feeling a pressure that would not subside. I tried going to the bathroom and instantly knew something wasn’t right. We were ready to walk out the door and get in the car when I told Richard that the baby was coming NOW.

Richard remained calm and sat me in a chair. Sure enough, the baby was indeed coming; the head was already crowning. My dad called 911.

Everything happened so fast. It felt so surreal.

The realization that I was going to give birth in my kitchen only dawned on me when Richard told me to push. I felt a rush of panic and fear in that moment and the words “I’m going to die!” escaped from me as I realized that my HUSBAND was going to deliver our baby (no offense, Richard…I just prefer to go through childbirth in a place with doctors and medication on hand).

With the second push, another horror occurred to me: my father was watching me push a baby out of my hooha.

With the third push, at 4:11am, our baby was out and crying. Richard repeatedly yelled at my father (who is hard of hearing) to get scissors. After finally locating the scissors, Richard took care of the umbilical cord and started cleaning off the baby.

I sat there, vastly relieved that the baby was alive but still in a state of horror. I was bleeding a lot and still experiencing painful contractions since I had yet to deliver the afterbirth.

None of us thought to check the sex of the baby. Richard finally noticed it was a girl while cleaning her up in our kitchen sink. I barely registered this news, as the Danny Tanner in me could only focus on the fact that Richard was wiping our newborn with a used kitchen washcloth.

The EMTs arrived then and the scene became even more chaotic. The dogs were running all around. Richard was yelling again, telling my dad to control the dogs and keep them from tracking my blood onto the carpet.

I could barely focus on all the questions that the paramedics were asking me. I was only aware of two things: what was happening to my new baby and the carpet. Both were miraculously fine.

One of the EMTs told me that I was losing a lot of blood and my blood pressure was dropping too low. I needed to go to the closest hospital right away to deliver the placenta. They loaded me onto the gurney and placed our baby girl in my arms for the ambulance ride. We got to the hospital a few minutes later, around 4:30am.

About an hour later, after the placenta and stitches were taken care of, I was taking a shower. Natural childbirth = quick recovery.

Later that morning, Richard and I finally had a chance to decide on a name for our little girl. We picked Carmendy Helene, the most unusual and the most meaningful name on our list of choices:

• The name Carmen, which is part of Carmendy, reflects my father’s side of the family, the Sassi’s. Carmine was my grandfather’s name. Carmen is also my sister’s middle name. So including Carmen in our baby’s name was a perfect tribute to my father, who helped deliver her.
• My mother-in-law’s middle name is Helene and my mother’s name is Helen. Carmendy’s middle name honors them both.
• Carmendy is an extremely unique name. Only a few other babies were given this name last year and most used the alternate spelling, Carmindy. But Carmendy had a rare entrance, born in our kitchen at the hands of Dr. Dick. She needed a rare name. Special birth, special name.

Carmendy has been here for almost a week now. I’m still in awe of her. I can’t quite wrap my head around her birth; it feels like it was a dream. And I’m still surprised she’s a girl (I have a GIRL!?!).

Richard has been on cloud nine all week, high from successfully delivering his own baby with no medical training. He’s gotten a lot of praise over the past 6 days (A LOT) and our story caused quite a stir on Facebook. I am forever thankful that Richard remained calm and handled the situation with such confidence and clarity. BUT I would like to remind folks that I did some of the work too. 🙂

Carmendy is completely different from Owen – quiet and gentle. And with her grand entrance, she clearly wants to show the world that she deserves as much attention as her big brother. She’s tiny compared to Owen, who was never as small. Carmendy weighed 7 pounds and 8 ounces at birth, exactly the same as I did when I was born.

Owen is very interested in Carmendy. He uses an extremely high pitched voice when talking to her. When she gets restless and makes noises, Owen tells her “It’s okay!” and pets her head. He wants to hold her all the time. And he is fascinated by her umbilical cord stump. At first he thought it was poop on her belly and he told Richard to wipe the “poop” off. Now he’s always trying to pull up her shirt to look at the “bump.”

With Carmendy’s arrival, I have observed two things about Owen: he’s huge and he’s loud. Very LOUD.

Although Owen and Carmendy have opposite personalities (so far anyway), one thing is the same…my love for them. I was worried about making room in my heart for another child; how could I love anyone or anything as much as O? But my love for Carmendy was instantly as complete and strong as my love for Owen. I know now that a parent doesn’t have to “make room” in their hearts and share their love; your heart simply grows bigger. My love is two times the size now, not 50/50. I could not be happier – our carpet narrowly escaped bloody destruction, our children are safe and healthy (and pretty darn cute too), and our family is complete. Who cares about only getting a couple hours of sleep each night? Life is good.

Owen’s hand looks so big!