Sarah's Grand Entrance

Now that Sarah and I have had a bit of a chance to rest today, I'll fill you in on how she made her grand entrance to the world. People have been asking for how everything went, so I have put in some details below. Nothing gory, but if you don't want the specifics, feel free to skip it. Lots of pictures to follow.

So, along the way, we didn't think we'd make it all the way to due date. After Sarah dropped down lower and got ready to come out last week, we thought I'd probably go into labor over the weekend. She had other plans in mind and decided to stay put for a bit longer. I had an Emergency Department shift on Friday night and then another from 6pm-3am on Sunday night. I had been getting more and more uncomfortable with back pain and contractions over the past couple weeks, so everybody in the ED was waiting for me to suddenly go into labor in the middle of a shift. Sunday night was really busy, but we made it through. Monday morning, I slept until about 11am when my cutie pie Austin woke me up with hugs and kisses. I headed to noon conference, ran some errands, then went to my next OB appointment at 2:30pm. At that appointment I hadn't really changed since the previous week despite a week of uncomfortable contractions coming and going. Baby girl passed a biophysical profile (BPP) on the ultrasound with flying colors and was still doing great. We got me put on the calendar for eventual induction if I happened to go very late (41 and 4/7 weeks to be exact) which would have been February 7th! I was really hoping I wouldn't go that long! Around 4pm, my water broke. Time to go to the hospital. I was given permission to go home first, get my bag, get Austin over to the neighbor's house to play until Nanny got down here from the Twin Cities, eat a little snack, and then head to the hospital.

Despite my water breaking, my labor didn't kick in with enough force to cause more dilation, so I got set up with and IV drip of pitocin (oxytocin) which is a hormone that causes uterine contractions. It makes contractions stronger and more effective. The dose was ramped up gradually, making me more and more uncomfortable as we got into stronger labor. Then it was epidural time! Yay for epidurals! Unfortunately, this one was not as good as the one I had with Austin. Last time, after switching positions a bit to get one stubborn spot to go numb, I was numb to my contractions and quite comfy for much of labor. This time, despite increasing the dosing of the anesthetic in the epidural, I never really got full pain relief from the contractions. While we were messing with the epidural dosing, I got dilated to about 5. The pain was steadily a bit better and was improving for a little while, when over the course of about 5-10 minutes, it got much worse again. The smart nurse I had figured something was up and called my doctor in. She checked me and found that I was completely dilated! I went from 5 to complete (10) in 1 hour! She told me baby was right there and not to sneeze or baby would fall out. She was only exaggerating slightly, because after a couple minutes everybody was gowned and gloved and we were ready to start pushing and I only pushed for 5 minutes and she was out! That was even quicker than with Austin when I went from 5 to 10 in 2 hours and pushed for 15 minutes. And I thought that was fast!

Our new arrival

Because it had been complicated pregnancy, the pediatrics team was there (neonatal nurse practitioner and one of our peds interns) to evaluate her as soon as she was born. They took her over to the warmer and checked her over. I couldn't really see her while they were huddled around the bed, and I was quite eager to see my baby! I did manage to catch a glimpse of her dimples...just like big brother! After they checked her over (which seemed to take forever!) and determined she was perfect, they brought her over to me.

Meeting Mommy

She was pretty alert, with her eyes open and looking around.We got to snuggle while they stitched me up (I got a tear again...different spot this time).
We got her weighed (8lbs 3oz, 3.705kg) and measured (20 inches long, 51 cm) and fed, then got her footprints done and got her shots (vitamin K to prevent bleeding and her first Hepatitis B vaccine). Then it was time to meet Nanny and Grandpa!

More snuggle time with Mommy and Daddy... (and lots of picture taking, of course!)

Then Nanny and Grandpa left to go get Michelle from our house, where she had been staying with Austin while we were all at the hospital. She was so excited that she couldn't wait until morning to meet Sarah, so she came to the hospital around 4am. While they were swapping Nanny for Michelle at home, we got moved up to our room on the postpartum floor (private room right away this time. Yay!).

Sarah's bassinett tagMichelle meeting Sarah
Then everybody headed home to get a few hours of sleep while Sarah and I settled in to try and get some rest at the hospital. In the morning, Austin got to come meet his baby sister!

Austin first meeting Sarah
He was very excited and seemed to understand that this was his baby sister that had been in mommy's tummy and now came out. He gave her lots of kisses and said things on his own like "My baby sister came out." "I love my baby sister" and "I want to hold my baby sister."

Checking her out.

Getting to hold her (with help of course). Austin asks to hold her and just walks across the room to whoever's got her, holding his arms out in front of him as if we'll just hand her over. He does really well with holding her if he's sitting with one of us, though. He's very sweet and gentle with her and even says "Mommy, I be real gentle with the baby."Daddy showed him that if he put his finger in her hand, she would grab his finger. He thought that was pretty great.
Happy and relaxed with big brother.Auntie Michelle back to visit.

Shortly after everybody arrived, it was time for Sarah to go have an ultrasound. She had some kind of cystic mass in her pelvis seen on prenatal ultrasound that we had been following throughout the pregnancy. It seemed like it got smaller and then stayed pretty stable on the ultrasounds prenatally. It was felt likely to be an ovarian cyst, which would be no big deal. It got to the point, though, that we couldn't really tell on prenatal ultrasound what was going on with it, since they had to go through me and then through her to see it. So we planned to get an ultrasound of her alone after she was born to see what was going on there. My doctor is going to have another radiologist look at it to confirm, but the reading on the ultrasound so far is that it looked normal and they didn't see any cyst. Her uterus was a little big, but that is probably from my hormones that she was exposed to in utero. Baby girls can even have a little "period" in their diaper after being born as a withdrawal from the mom's hormones. Anyway, the plan is to recheck with another ultrasound in 6 weeks.

Grandpa is the specialist in giving baths (as Austin will inform you), so we waited to give Sarah her first bath until Grandpa got here.

Shampoo time.
A little hair styling by Auntie Michelle.Fresh clean baby.

Austin got a bit restless when we were giving Sarah her bath, so we turned on some Curious George for him to watch on TV. He sat quietly in my bed and drank some water.
Unfortunately, he spilled the water all over his pants and the bed and nobody had brought him extra pants since he has been doing such a good job staying dry in his big boy underpants lately. So Daddy got a blow dryer from one of the nurses and Austin sat pantsless on a mat, eating a granola bar, watching his show while Daddy blow dried his pants and underwear.
Then it was time for everybody to head home for lunch and naptime. Sarah and I got a nap too. Michelle and Grandpa headed back to the Twin Cities, and Nanny, Austin, and Daddy came back to the hospital this evening to visit again. Austin got to hold "baby sister" some more. He knows her name now, but still calls her "baby sister" because we wouldn't tell him the name before she was born for fear he would leak it to the inquiring grandparents so he got used to calling her "baby sister."

Giving kisses and saying "I love my baby sister." What a sweetie!

Now Austin is home with Daddy and Nanny and hopefully tucked in bed for the night. It has been a busy day and it seems odd that Sarah isn't even 24 hours old yet! By doctor's request, we'll be in the hospital until Thursday morning (the full standard 2 days) since she was born technically this morning (12:25am).

So...that's the story of Sarah's grand entrance to the world and our first day together. We are so thrilled to add this precious miracle to our family. Thanks to all of you for the well wishes and for all the support, love, prayers, and help throughout this pregnancy as we ran into scary complications. Our prayers have been answered and we have a beautiful, healthy baby girl!