She's here!

FayeD · December 2011

Our little girl was born early in the morning on the 21st. She came out at 2.88kg and 48cm long. She's tiny and perfect. Looks so much like her brother when he was born.

I had an appointment scheduled on Tuesday during my lunch break. DH was going with me because my doctor had her Christmas leave scheduled to start the next day and we had questions about who was taking over. The doctor called me at 9am asking if I could come immediately because she suddenly had a surgery scheduled and couldn't see me at my appointment. Call DH, inform work, dash over, and get seen.

BabyGirl was still doing fine, measuring along her track, and healthy. Doctor examined me and I was 2.5cm dialated, 30% effaced, and having show. She told us to come back at 8pm, the end of her appointments for the day, to be checked for progress. Also told us to pack our bags because if I had progressed to 4-5cm then she was admitting me.

Made it to work just before my new start time for my reduced hours. Told work what was going on, filled out some paperwork just in case, and went about my work day. Had infrequent but slightly stronger false labor pains I'd been feeling for a couple weeks. Had show all day. Picked up BabyD from school, grabbed a couple things from the store on base, we all went home, and we had dinner with our little boy. Was strange leaving him not knowing if we were staying at the hospital or not.

Got to the hospital and was taken to a room to measure for contractions. That didn't last long because they examined me again and I was 4.5cm and 50% effaced. Was taken to the labor room while DH took our paperwork to admissions. From there it was get the epidural in, monitor contractions and vitals, and rest in between. The doctor broke my water around 1230am when I was 6cm. Around 0200am the nurse saw the baby's heartrate dropping with my contractions and I was having actual pain even through the epidural. Got checked and I was fully dialated.

They called in the doctor on duty, called my doctor, got the bed converted, got me into position, called the room where DH was sleeping, and had me start pushing. DH got there in a few minutes, thankfully. I pushed for maybe fifteen minutes and our daughter was there. At first I was a bit nervous because she was blue and not crying. Took a minute but they got the gunk out of her nose and she started wailing. Once I heard that I lay back and had a "finally/thank god/phew/overwhelmed" moment.

We're home now. BabyD is enthralled with his baby sister, as in goes running to her if she cries and wants to kiss her, but is not so enthralled with his parents. That's fine as his acting out was expected, isn't too bad considering, and is only aimed at us. We're talking and doing things to let him know that we still love him just as much. DH is thrilled to actually have our daughter, be able to hold her, and be in amazement at her. I'm loving our little family and happy, though still tired and sore. Thankful to have some down time to relax, recover, and adjust to our family dynamics being different.