Sophia Is Born

Sophia is BORN! Yeah! We are so excited! Here's the birth story and I'll post more pictures soon.

On Saturday January 17th we arrived at he hospital at 7:30. The bottom picture is of Lonny and I in our hospital room right before I have to change into my hospital gown (the apparel of choice (or the hospital's apparel of choice) for the next6 days).

They start me on pitocin around 8 am to induce labor (third picture). From 8 am to about 6:30 pm I'm on pitocin and having major major major major back contractions. So throughout the day I was in major pain (did I say major enough)? I was on no pain meds as they told me that the sooner I take pain medication the more chance the pain meds might not work as effectively when I am in active labor. When they turned off the pitocin that night I was only .5 cm dilated which I was told was NOT considered in labor. WHAT...I thought? I went though contractions all day to NOT be considered in labor? I was miserable to the point that it caused me to cry about 4 times because I couldn't take the pain. That day made me realize that I was absolutely going to have an epidural.



Saturday night after I was off of Pitocin I was still having serious contractions. I was just praying for some food (as I couldn't eat during the day) and some relief from the contractions. Lonny's parents came down from Red Bluff, CA and brought up Mexican dinner and wait for baby Sophia to arrive. I was so thankful they brought us some food. I took a long bath that night in the hospital and headed to bed.

Sunday morning 5 am the nurses came in the room to prep me for my second round of pitocin. I wasn't supposed to eat but the nurse snuck in some graham crackers and water so I had something in my stomach. I was on pitocin from about 5:30 am to 7:30 pm. That day the contractions were in the front (thankfully) and not in the back. They were pretty intense. The nurses and Dr checked me throughout the day and I was making little progress. So around 7:30 the Dr said I was only 2 cm dilated and the baby was still "high" in the birth canal which led her to believe Sophia was having a hard time getting through the birth canal. So she asked us to consider a C-Section.

I had a feeling all along that I'd be giving birth via C-Section. I was pretty nervous but knew that we had to do it. I don't do well in hospitals and have never been under the knife so it wasn't an easy decision. By that time I had been on epidural for 3 or 4 hours. The anesthesiologist came in to up my pain killer dosage to make me more numb so I didn't feel the knife. The next thing I knew Lonny was getting his "clean operating grubs on" and I was being wheeled to the operating room (I closed my eyes so I didn't think about being rolled to an operating room).

We arrived in the room and my OBGYN talked me through what she was doing (cleaning my stomach, prepping her tools, etc). The anesthesiologist was also talking me through what he was doing. The anesthesiologist was always by my head and was very attentive to me. He then called Lonny who sat right by my head. The anesthesiologist said okay they are beginning in 5 minutes Sophia will be born. So since the Dr's and nurses knew I was nervous they started talking about the Steeler Football game that Lonny and I watched earlier in the day. They were talking "smack" about football just to get me talking. So we bantered back and forth all at the same time they are pushing on my stomach to get Sophia to manoeuvre down to the open area of my stomach. Then I hear "wah, wah, wah"...the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. Sophia was born. I instantly started to cry as I couldn't believe that I had just given birth to our baby girl. It was such an amazing sensation. Lonny stood up to take a quick picture then leaned down to me and gave me a kiss and said "she's here".

The nurses took her aside to clean her up. Lonny watched them. The Dr. was delivering my placenta and cleaning me up. Then they took Sophia to the nursery to weigh her. Lonny went with her (second picture from the top).

I went into the recovery room where the nurses massaged my stomach to get the uterus to clean itself out. I then went back to our room with Sophia and papa there! The first night I don't think Lonny and I slept one minute as we kept staring at her to make sure she was breathing and we were also in ah...pure ah.

The next morning Lonny's parents came to visit (top picture). I'll write more on the next post.