Our Darling Daughter

Emile and I are so excited to announce the birth of our daughter, Natalie Michelle! She arrived via c-section on May 30, 2008 at 3:18 p.m. She weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz and is 21 inches long. Her Apgar score was 8/9. Right now she has dark brown hair and black/blue eyes -- we expect both of these to change over the next few months. Emile was born with black/brown hair and now has blond. Her hair and eye color has already started lightening up. We're thinking she'll end up being a blondie with blue eyes. I ended up having a c-section so we weren't able to bring her home until Monday, June 2.

She is the most adorable, beautiful baby ever (if I say so myself! :). We are so blessed to have such a wonderful, healthy baby girl! Taking care of her has been going really well -- although she has her nights and days mixed up like most newborns, she doesn't wail at night. Getting up in the middle of the night with her, although tiring, is still pleasant -- she mostly coos and sucks on her hand to tell us she's hungry and wants to get up, with the occasional short-lived cry. I love holding her, resting my cheek on her cheek, kissing her, talking to her, and just looking at her!

I am solely breast feeding her right now. So far, so good. I was surprised at how easily her and I took to the task. We didn't have any latch on or other problems to contend with. When we left the hospital, she had dropped from 7 lb. 9 oz. to 6 lb. 15 oz (normal weight loss) and by her 2-day weight check appointment at Raleigh Pediatrics (this past Tuesday) she was back up to 7 lb. 1 oz! She goes in again tomorrow for another follow-up weight check appointment. On Tuesday, though, the doctor stated all looked good -- no jaundice, weight gain was good, coloring was good, etc.

Below is my birth story:

Around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 28th, I started getting contractions. They started off about 12-15 minutes apart and stayed that way through most of the night. By early morning they were about 7-8 minutes apart. I was hoping this was the start of my labor; however, by 10 a.m. the contractions had completely stopped. I had just gone through 12 hours of false labor! Very frustrating to say the least. So on Thursday, May 29th, I went for two hour and half long walks (and got sun burned as you can see in some of my birth photos) and sat on my exercise ball hoping to jump start contractions again. At around 7 p.m. on May 29th, my contractions started back up again and were about 7-8 minutes apart. By 11:30 p.m., they were finally 5 minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute, for an hour so Dr. Gunter (the dr. on-call at Rex Hospital) told me to come on into the hospital.

Emile and I grabbed the remaining items we needed for my hospital bag, fed the cats, and headed out the door. We live outside of the city and thus, at 12:30 a.m. the highways are pretty empty. We ended up behind a truck that was going pretty slow and on a part of the highway where there was no passing. So Emile decides at the next light, he would not only try to pass the truck in the turn lane but because the roads were so dead and there were no cars coming the other direction, he was going to go through the red light! And yes, of course, there turned out to be a police car sitting in the closed gas station on the corner. We got pulled over on the way to the hospital -- isn't this something you'd expect to happen only in the movies! I, of course, got worried that we were going to be stuck there for awhile but Emile was convinced we had a "get out of jail free card" given I was in labor. After he managed to flag down the cop to come up to the car sooner (thank goodness he didn't get out of the car to go talk to the cop -- I'm sure that wouldn't have gone well), he explained to the cop that I was in labor which was why he went through the red light after stopping. Luckily, I was actually having a contraction at this time. And wouldn't you know, the cop actually said ok, go on, just be careful! Who would have thought that our trip to L&D would resemble the movies!

We arrived and were checked into Triage at Rex Hospital at 1:15 a.m. After the 12 hours of false labor and contractions from 7 p.m. till 1 a.m., the nurse confirmed I still had made hardly any progress as of my last dr. appointment -- finger tip dilated and 50% effaced. I was so disappointed. The nurse checked with Dr. Gunter to see if he wanted to send me home or keep me and try to get labor going. Because I was already overdue (41w6d), Dr. Gunter decided I should be admitted and thus, I was going to be having our little girl sometime today (May 30th). After being admitted, I walked around for about 45 minutes and the nurse re-checked me in our room. Still no progress! And on top of it, contractions started slowing down again. The nurse hooked up my IV. We then decided to see how things went throughout the night. I slept a little to try to gather more strength for the long day to come. I then started alternating between sitting on the birthing ball and walking around. The nurse checked me again at 6 a.m. and I was still only finger tip dilated!

Dr. Gunter was concerned that my labor was not picking up on its own and thus, suggested starting pitocin. I was less than thrilled to start pitocin. This was item #1 on my list of things I didn't want to do during my labor out of concern for being stuck in bed, contractions being significantly more intense than without, and thus, feeling the need for an epidural. My concern with an epidural was I would further be stuck in bed (as with pitocin) and then my labor would stall because I didn't have gravity etc. working with me and ultimately end up with a c-section. So I was pretty reluctant. But pitocin was started at 6:45 a.m. As expected, my contractions got significantly more intense right away to the point that I was uncontrollably shaking during each contraction. I was determined to make it till 9 a.m. before deciding on an epidural even though the nurses and Emile were encouraging me to get one due to the shaking. At 9 a.m. the nurse checked me again and I was only at 3 cm. They had expected me to have made significantly more progress by then (14 hours of labor). I was still shaking as if I was in transition, but yet so far from that point. And on top of it, my water still wasn't broke. Once it was broke and I actually reached transition, contractions would get worse. Given the shaking, I was concerned about handling it and thus, I eventually gave into the epidural. They had a hard time getting it in because I kept tightening up and sobbing because I didn't really want to go this route -- item #2 on list of things I didn't want to do during labor.

After getting the epidural, of course, I could no longer feel the contractions. The shaking slowed down but didn't completely go away. Dr. Homeister (now on duty) came to check me at 10:30 a.m. I was still only 3 cm and -2 station but now 80% effaced. She broke my water which would hopefully speed up progress. She also added an internal fetal monitor (item #3 of my list of don'ts) because they were having problems tracking her heart rate well. Dr. Homeister checked me at 12:45 p.m. -- I had only progressed to 4.5 cm. By this point, however, Natalie's heart rate kept dropping after each contraction. Dr. Homeister was concerned that she was under some sort of distress. Over the next 2 hours, they monitored how well Natalie responded to different levels of pitocin. Her heart rate stopped dropping only when they stopped the pitocin. However, when they did this, my body didn't pick up the slack and my contraction frequency and intensity dropped off -- i.e. I was making no progress. I had stalled at 4.5 cm. Because of the concerns over Natalie's heart rate and my body not kicking in on its own to go through labor, Dr. Homeister recommended a c-section -- item #4 of things I definitely wanted to avoid! Without it, I was most likely going to spend hours at the same place waiting for my body to progress on its own and ultimately possibly end up in an emergency c-section. At this point, it wasn't an emergency but highly recommended.

At 2:45 p.m. I agreed to the c-section. They moved so quickly after that. It was such a whirlwind. Luckily, I didn't have to get a general anesthetic and thus, was awake to see her when she first came out. Emile was in the OR room with me holding my hand. I was pretty scared. Although I couldn't feel the cuts etc., I could definitely feel them pushing hard on my belly to get her out. Natalie Michelle was born at 3:18 p.m. -- her first cry was the best sound in the world! Emile went out of the room with her to make sure all was well while they finished stitching me up. I apparently had a panic attack after Natalie and Emile left the room -- I started to getting nauseous and a weird tingly feeling throughout my body. I panicked thinking something was happening to me and started freaking out on the OR table -- wanting to be let up, telling them they were hurting me, etc. I was pretty much out of it! They ended up giving me something to knock me out. When I came too, they were just finishing sewing me up. I didn't get to see Natalie again until I was back in the recovery room and I didn't get to hold her until my shaking had calmed down. She was so perfect! My L&D experience was all worth it to have her with us!