And then she came...

My little angel is sleeping soundly in grandma's arms, so I thought I'd take a moment to write out our birth story.

We came into the hospital about 9:00 p.m. on Sunday. We were scheduled to induce labor, hoping to have her on Mon afternoon or evening. I was actually already having pretty regular contractions when they got me hooked up to the monitors, so we just watched and timed them for a while. Around 1 am I took a half pill to speed things up a bit, since the contractions weren't really productive yet. That brought me up to about 5 minutes apart, and a pretty good level of contracting. I wasn't really in pain yet, just a big uncomfortable. B and I both slept on and off throughout the night. The nurse debated on whether or not to give me the second dose of the inducing stuff, to keep things progressing. I was doing fine, but wasn't getting any stronger or closer together - or more dialated in the process. So, about 7 am she gave me the rest of the pill.

That's when things started going poorly. I was totally overstimulated and had some contractions that didn't stop - not giving the baby a moment to rest. This stressed her out and her pulse rate dropped dangerously and often. Within moments there were 5 nurses buzzing around me and doing who knows what. It was scary. Brandon had been sleeping, but was up on his feet quickly. They gave me something by IV that stopped the contractions, but it was an muscle relaxant and it caused me to shake and spaz all throughout my body. That felt awful! Baby was still stressed, so a Dr came and broke my water and put in an internal monitor. It wasn't long before they were trying to decide if we should continue laboring like this or not. I was definitely feeling the contractions now, and they hurt. I got the epideral, which wasn't bad and helped relax me a lot. But, through monitoring and whatnot the baby was still dropping out on heart rate, and had pooped internally, and just was unhappy. So, to the c-section I was whisked.

Everything happened really quickly from then. They put Brandon in scrubs, disconnected all my machines, rolled me through the hall and into the elevator, and in minutes had me in the operating room. I stayed awake throughout the process, and Brandon held my hand and watched the whole thing over the curtain. (Gross, B) Not much to say about the c-section - it was quick and awkward, a little scary, but the nurses and drs were really reassuring. Within about 20 minutes of being in the room they lifted a wiggly little body over the curtain for 2 seconds. This was apparently my baby! I was pretty out of it, but Brandon watched the Dr clean her up from across the room. Dr, baby, and Brandon left for the nursery and I was left lying there to be stitched back up. This was really the only bad part of the process, because I was alone up there for about an hour, and then another 1/2 hour in post op recovery. They wouldn't let Brandon or my parents come see me, nor had I even met the baby yet. So, we all waiting, not so patiently through this time. Brandon was in the nursery with his yet unnammed daughter, and my parents were peering through the window, anxiously waiting a chance to meet her and see how I was doing.

Eventually, I came down, they brought her out of the nursery, we all got to hug and cry and smile together in our long-term recovery room. We named her Miranda Ann, as you already know, but we've been calling her Andy. I'm doing really well with recovery, I feel great actually - considering the circumstances. Miranda is very heathly and passing every test they give her. She's content and happy as a baby so far. Sleeping a lot, of course. Not a stellar nurser yet, but we'll keep working on it.

Brandon says this is way too long now, and I have to get back to my sweetie. Thanks for reading, thanks for caring!