Arrival of the Princess!

Giving up roller derby, throwing up multiple times a day for 4 months, severe back pain for two months, bleeding a couple times during the pregnancy, all the fears of positive Strep B and low platelets....it was so worth it for this day, Saturday, July 31, 2010! In fact, the birthing experience was so incredibly amazing, I am ready to do it again!

Here I am at my most pregnant state. This is about 4:30 am as we headed up to the Center for New Life. Although I was a scheduled induction, I began having contractions the day before.

When we arrived they said my contractions were 5-7 minutes apart, but were not intense (yet). The only bad part to this day was that the nurses had a lot of trouble getting my IV started. In fact, it took 3 nurses 7 tries to be successful. And those IV needles hurt a lot! Today it looks like I am a heroin addict, with the brusing up my arms. Thankfully the NICU nurse (on her third attempt) was able to get it started so around 5:50 am we had Pitocin, electrolytes, and the antibiotics all going. They came and drew my blood, and about 30 minutes later we found out my platelet count was 106! Yay, potential for an epidural, by 6 points!!!!

Then we waited......

Around 9:15, I had still not progressed much so Dr. G came in and broke my water. The contractions really began to intensify at this point. After breathing through a couple rounds (I think Pitocin was about at 12), I decided to go ahead and take advantage of my 6 point lead and got an epidural. This was a totally different experience than the one I had when Nathaniel was born, it did not hurt when I got it and it completely took away the pains. I guess this is how it is really supposed to work - and it was fabulous! My hat still goes off to those of you who opt for a natural delivery, but to me, natural delivery means having a baby without putting your makeup on!

At noon the wonderful nurses came in and said I was 4-5 cm dialated but the baby was still high (-2 station). So I sent Ted out to get lunch for himself and my mom. At this point Mom (who is a labor and delivery nurse) began noticing baby girl's heart rate dropping. The nursing staff and my doctor came in and Ted made it back with lunch! They turned me and put an internal lead on the baby's head to pick up her heart rate, which came up nicely. It tended to drop only during contractions.

I was quickly dialating, 6 cm, 7 cm, anterior lip....and at 1:00 Dr. G said "start pushing". This is a wild experience when you cannot feel the contractions much, all it felt like was when I had to pee really bad. So I pushed for 15 minutes and out she came! It was awesome (quite different from the 1 hour 1 minute marathon, with intense contractions that I had with Nathaniel).

Daddy cut the cord.

Mommy got to hold her for a few seconds.

All the measurements were taken

She was 19 inches long, 7 pounds 5 ounces

And looks a whole lot like her big brother

The staff gave Daddy a hat with her tiny little feet prints on it.

She was very alert at the beginning, trying to take in all these new sites and sounds.

We spent a lot of time, just gazing at her beauty!

Then Nathaniel got to meet "baby Rissa". At first he was a bit hesitant but that quickly turned to excitement!

She ate and slept really well the first night. Nathaniel was more difficult and could not understand why Mommy had to stay. He was pretty upset about leaving Mommy and "baby Rissa".

The next day he was screaming down the hall "See Mommy and Rissa!"

Because we were doing so well, and she got all the antibiotics needed on board before delivery, we were released to go home on Sunday. However we had to make 2 major decisions....1) The name of the baby and 2) see pic below....if Ted was the biological or presumed father (what has society come to?)

We decided to put him as the biological father :)

And her name is officially Marissa (named after my grandfather, Maurice, who is one of the most amazing men I am blessed to know). Her middle name is Michelle (same as mine, which was Ted's choice).

Nathaniel was practically running to get us all home!

And life with two begins! We are loving it!

She is fearfully and wonderfully made!