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Since coming home

It has been a rather hectic couple of days for us. I got home with Rebekah on Wednesday and we started to get settled in. On Thursday just as we were started to get settled in, the public health nurse stopped in for her visit. She decided that Rebekah looked a little jaundice and sent off a blood sample to the hospital. By 8:00pm on Thursday we were back at the hospital so Rebekah could go under the lights. It took a full 24 hours for her levels to come back down to a safe amount so we just got back from the hospital last night. Sara has been sick with a fever since Monday night. It bounces between 100 F to 104.5 F. So things have been a little rough for her over the last few days. And as she seems to have a tendency to puke whenever her fever spikes, Dan has had a lot of fun cleaning up puke, while I have been at the hospital. So we're hoping whatever it is that is causing Sara to be so sick will end soon so we can really get a chance to relax and find a routine that works for us. That pretty much sums up what has been happening here since Monday, I can definitely say it has been an exciting week.

Pictures

Birth story

On Tuesday morning around 8:00am my water broke. Thankfully by a whole bunch of coincidences Dan was only 5 minutes away from the house on his way to work when I called him, so he made his way back here, and I called our babysitter. Around 10:00am I was having contractions so we headed off to the hospital. I got a bed in triage and hooked up to the monitors around 12:00pm. The monitors showed that I was having contractions about every 10 minutes, but the babies heart beat was dropping off occasionally with the contractions so they were worried that the cord was pinched. They decided to keep me hooked up to the monitors to make sure it didn't get worse. Unfortunately this meant that I couldn't get up and walk around so the contractions I was having stopped. Once the contractions stopped the babies heart rate stabilized so they let me get up and walk around, which we did.

At 7:00pm because my contractions hadn't started again, I was given the option to go home and try to get them going again, but I had to come back in at 7:00am to be induced if they didn't start. Or I could get induced right now. I really didn't feel that going home was going to get the contractions started so we decided to get induced right away, with the stipulation that before they started the cytosine they would do an exam to make sure there wasn't a pocket of water. They did the exam at 8:20pm and found that I was 4 cm dilated and had a pocket of water, which they promptly broke. They agreed to wait another 2 hours before starting the cytosine to see if rebreaking the membrane would start labor naturally. At 11:00pm my contractions were getting to be intense but they were still 5 minutes apart, and the nurse really started to push me to start the cytosine to get things moving. I eventually agreed but I wanted to get the epidural put in first. So at 11:45pm I got my epidural, immediately after getting the epidural my contractions moved to being a minute apart, so we didn't end up using the cytosine after all.

At 12:45pm the babies heart rate starting dropping with each contraction again, so they did an exam to see if I was ready to push and I was 9.5 cm dilated, but the heart rate was becoming a concern so I was put on oxygen and an internal monitor was put in, we then started trying various positions to get the heart rate back up. We eventually got the heart rate to go back to normal by having me stay on my hands and knees. Shortly after getting into this position I started to feel the urge to push, but as they figured going back onto my back to push would cause the heart rate to drop again, they wanted to wait for the baby to move down more on it's own, so I stayed on my hands and knees for another 40 minutes while we waited for the urge to push to become pretty much unbearable.

At 1:35am I announced that I couldn't wait any longer and that this baby was coming out now. I rolled over and started to push pretty much right away. Things got a little hectic here, as she came a lot quicker then the nurse expected and after only three pushes the babies head had not only crowned but was out. At this point the nurse started calling frantically over the intercom for the somebody to get in there now! She also discovered at this point that the cord was wrapped around the babies neck and was causing the babies heart rate to drop. So while I think she might have wanted to take a quick break at this point and give the Dr. a chance to arrive we had to get the baby out right away. So the pushing resumed and she was out just in time for the Dr. to run in and catch her. She let out a big cry right away to let us know she was okay. So Rebekah Lauren was born at 1:45am, 7lbs 12 oz and 21 inches long.

She was perfectly healthy, except for being mucusy from being born so quickly, and she had bruises on her face because she was facing up when my labor started and in the process of turning she got some bruises on her face.

Off to the hospital...

Apparently this baby has a mind of it's own and doesn't want anybody to tell it when it should come... my water broke this morning, so we will be off to the hospital soon. Check back soon to find out about baby.

baby.. baby.. where are you?

Oh wait I remember now, still in my stomach. I saw my Dr. on Wednesday and she feels that I will probably go into labor any day. She even went so far to suggest that Friday worked well for her, as she is on call that day. But if I don't go into labor soon, when I see her next Wednesday she will break my water, and I will be off to the hospital. I am excited to have an end date to this pregnancy as it seems to be dragging on forever, but I can't help but hope that her first prediction that it would be sooner rather then later was true. So for those who haven't put in a guess yet for the birth of this baby, I just narrowed the field so you might want to throw a day out there before they're all gone.