Olivia is finally here!  Born August 21, 2008 at 1:18 pm.  She was 7 lbs, 9 oz and 20 inches. 

I'm posting my birth story here, because a few people on facebook wanted to know what happened, and I didn't want to post it up for everyone to have to read if they don't want to.  So, very medical-ly details follow.  If you don't wish to know them, feel free to scroll down to the pictures of the scrumptiousness.

We went to the hospital on 8/19 at 8 pm.  Due to pharmacy error and then doctor unavailability, we didn't get the cytotec to ripen my cervix until 1:30 am.  At about 6 am on the 20th, I was started on pitocin and titrated up to the max dose by a few hours later.  At this point, I'd been being "induced" for about 12 hours and was only dilated to 5 cm.  If the rest of the induction went this slowly, I wasn't sure I could deal with the pain the whole time and also be able to push at the end, so I chose to get an epidural. 

The epidural made me more comfortable, but I still proceeded about twice as slowly as they wanted.  I was finally 10 cm dilated at 9 am on the 21st.  (No food for about 37 hours by this time.)  The doctor talked to us about the fact that, because I'd gone so unwillingly into labor, that she didn't want me to push for a super long time and that she worried about the baby "getting tired" even though there had been no heartrate decelerations. Because she wanted my pushing to be as effective as possible, they turned my epidural completely off for the pushing.  That was fun.  On my last check, they found that the baby was faced sideways (meaning, spine was along my left side rather than being straight down the middle of my belly, making the baby's head present facing my thigh rather than my back side, which is hard to deliver.)

During labor, I had a low grade fever two separate times.  They started me on 2 different antibiotics for a suspected uterine infection.  (One measure was taken after my epidural made me really cold and I had piled on about 4 blankets; the other was taken under my arm and they added 1 degree celcius instead of 1 degree farenheit, thus making it falsely over a half a degree more.  Please don't get me started on this.)

I pushed for 3 hours without any real progress being made.  After 30 minutes, I had successfully pushed her into position, or so I was told.  Several times, the doctors thought I was moving the head down, and so they had me keep pushing.  There were 2 times where the baby's heartrate dropped to the 90's, so most of my pushing was done with an oxygen mask.  In the end, my pitocin drip ran out and the nurse failed to call for more because she "didn't ever think my contractions would stall".  But stall they did from 1 right after the other to 1 every 10 minutes or so.  By the time we got more, hospital protocol called for us to start at the minimum dose, when I had been beyond the maximum before that.  My contractions never got back to normal.  The doctor decided to make one last effort and suction the head to try to get past my pelvic bone.  She used the suction cup to pull through 2 of my pushes, and during the last one, the baby's heartrate dropped and we were pretty much forced to go in for a c-section.  (During the c-section, they found that she was actually still positioned sideways, and that my pelvis was structured in a way that wouldn't have ever let her progress. She has/had a big bruise on the back/side of her head from the suction to remind me.)

The operation went without incident on my part.  Olivia screamed right away, which was comforting from behind my curtain.  However, she was grunting a lot, and they suspected fluid in her lungs, so they put her on a CPAP and immediately took her to the intermediate care nursery.  Her chest Xray was clear and her oxygen was never a problem, but they kept her in the nursery for over 24 hours because of tachypnea, or fast breathing.  Because of the positive pressure from the CPAP, they had to decompress her stomach with stomach tubes.  She had an IV to administer antibiotics because of my fever, and she was monitored via EKG as well.  I didn't get to hold her until the morning after she was born, because the wheelchair that I was confined to was too low compared to her nursery bed.  I had only touched her little foot before that.  I didn't get to feed her until 9 am the day after she was born, because of the stomach tubes placed the previous day. 

Olivia came to our room about 4-5 pm on the 22nd and stayed with us from that point on.  She was declared jaundiced at about 5 am on the 23rd, 12 hours after being with us.  She was ordered under a bili light unless being fed.  Luckily, they let us come home on a home light that day, Saturday the 23rd, and we got the heck outta the hospital, which I was grateful for.  Sunday, we brought Olivia to the hospital for a bilirubin level which showed some improvement, and by her pediatrician's visit on Monday, she looked so good that they took her off the home light. 

Since everything has settled down, Olivia has gotten much better at breastfeeding.  We supplement after every feeding to be sure she stays hydrated to fight the jaundice, and she's gaining weight back already.  We don't have to see the doctor until her regular 2 week appointment next week.  

Please pray for her hearing screen to come back normal.  We are getting her re-screened because her left ear didn't pass the initial test in the hospital.  They say that lots of things, including noise, wax, and vernix in the ear canal can cause this, and we're believing that her hearing is perfect.  She's reacted pretty normally to sounds at home, as far as we can tell.

PICTURES!

Let it be said that I rarely break 100.  Michael, I believe, has done so only once.  Amazing.

The bumpers hardly helped at all...I promise. :)

This Thursday I will be 30 weeks pregnant.  3/4 of the way done!  Woo hoo!  I'm starting my OB/GYN rotation this week and will be on call and hopefully get to deliver some babies!  (and hopefully not be scarred by seeing bad deliveries!)  After this rotation, I go back to the office where I initially did outpatient medicine for my last month before taking time off to pop out this kiddo.  Hopefully, I'll waddle my way successfully until then.  :)

Below are some 28 week pics of me and the girly in my belly. 

Baby at 28 weeks.  She weighed 2 lbs 5 oz here. 



Me at 28 weeks pregnant: