Our Little Girl

So this is Meredith reporting live from the hospital. As most of you know/assume...our little girl is now here with us.

And this is her story!

On Sunday night at about 11 PM I started having contractions. Well I had had a few contactions here and there, but these were much worse than before.

We all went to bed excited and anticipating that we would be heading for the hospital in the middle of the night or at least early the next morning.

The contractions continued all night, but they only came about every hour, but boy were they HARD!!!! I didn't sleep much that night, but then again neither did my mom or Adam. But NOTHING. When we all woke up the next morning I was EXHAUSTED and still in a lot of pain, so I slept while Adam went to school and my mom did some chores around the house to get everything perfect.

The contractions continued to come very hard, but they were not regular so we didn't fret. I also had a doctors appointment at 4 PM so we hung around the house waiting to go to the doctor. After seeing her and with VERY regular contractions that were coming between 2 and 5 minutes apart, we were told to go home, eat some dinner, and then go to the hospital in an hour or so to see if I had progressed any. I was only dialated to a 2 at the doctors.

We went home, and I continued with the VERY painful contractions, and we got to the hospital about 6 PM.

We were brought in and after that hour of waiting, I was sad to find out that I had not progressed at ALL!!!! The sad thing is they told me they could not admit me unless I had progressed. So we were off to walk the halls of the hospital. We circled the halls of the labor and delivery wing for over an hour and then went back to the room to get checked for progression. We were praying I had progressed because I knew I could not make it another whole night with the same kind of labor pains I had had the night before.

The walking WORKED!!!! I had only progressed a 1/2 cm, but it was enough for them to admit me.

I quickly got an epideral, considering I was in so much pain that I really just couldn't stand it any more. For all those out there who go it alone, I am amazed by your strength!!!

After the epideral, which Adam stayed in to watch, he decided to go home to get some sleep, since we knew it would be a very long night!! (I wasn't progressing quickly at all).

I also got a pitocin drip because with the epideral, my contractions slowed WAYYYY down. After just about 1/2 an hour of the pitocin, our little girl started to scare us. Her heart rate was dropping very low after every contraction. They even told us that we might have to have a c-section in order to get her here safely.

Luckily, after a few hours, I had progressed to a 7 and her heart rate had stabilized. (They took me off the pitocin drip when her heart rate was fluctuating and then once she stabalized they put me back on a slow pitocin drip to see if she did the same thing. She did much better on a lower dosage.) The nurse told us that we still had a while until I would be moving on to push. W kept trying to figure out when to call Adam to get him back to the hospital. We decided to let him sleep. The doctor came in about 40 mins later to check me once more to discover that I had made it to a 10 and was ready to start pushing.

We called Adam immediately and he rushed to the hospital. Luckily, because of all the problems, they wanted to wait until the doctor got to the hospital to start any pushing just incase anything else came up. Adam got there in plenty of time and we were all ready to go when the doctor came in.

We were worried about the well being of our little girl, so the doctor told us that we only had about 30 mins to push this little girl out. Well, it worked. After a half hour of pushing, and a little help from a vacuum, we got her out safely. The reason she was having all the problems was because she had her cord wrapped around her neck. Everything was ok when she came out. Adam was very supportive and actually did a well with everything he saw. (We were worried he might pass out on the floor at some point.)

She got here at 3:54 AM on September 30!
She was 7 pounds 4 ounces.
She was 20 inches long.
She made an 8/9 on her APGAR.

She is a beautiful little baby with gorgeous pink coloring. She looks exactly like me!!!! There will be pictures up later, but we just don't have them on this computer yet.

We are all doing well, and just keep checking back for more updates.

We will be going home tomorrow evening!!!!

Thank you for all of your prayers, love, and support!!!!