Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Labor & Delivery of Baby Grace

Last Friday, January 19th at 12:53pm, little Grace Corinne was born. Weighing 7 lbs 14 oz and 18.5 inches long. Ira, Grace and I are all home now and doing fantastic. Can't believe we have a little person here with us!

INDUCTION
I ended up getting induced on 1/19 at about 1am. They administered pitocin (the labor-inducing hormone) to get things started, and gradually increased the drip every 1/2 hour--everything was totally manageable. At 6:30am my OB arrived and broke my water, which REALLY got things moving. I was 80% effaced and 2 cm dilated at this point in time. The contractions started getting so intense then, and the doctor said I could still be as much as 10-20 hours away from delivering.

PAIN-FREE
Um, no thank you--I asked for some pain meds, and they recommended I get my epidural. I had really been on the fence about the epidural, but this was the clincher. So they sent in the anesthesiologist who put to rest all my fears, and in less than a half-hour I was virtually pain-free (and felt like a slug from the waist down—seriously, I struggled just to roll over to my other side!). At around 9am or so they checked my progress again, I was around 4 ½ cm dilated, and 90% effaced.

LABOR & DELIVERY
At 11am I began to feel my first contraction in a while, the nurse happened to be in the room, and I mentioned it to her. She said that as the baby’s head descended, that I would start to feel the contractions once again—she said she’d check my progress at noon, unless I was feeling remarkably different. They conjectured that I’d have the baby by mid to late afternoon. The 11am contraction was just the beginning—I was feeling EVERY contraction now, so I pressed the call button at 11:30 to have the nurse check on my progress. She was surprised to find that I was now 100% effaced and 9 ½ cm dilated. Only ½ cm to go!

I started to push at around noon, and my OB came at 12:30, and Grace was here by 12:53pm! Truly a miracle. They placed her little white wiggling body on mine, and I was in shock—I couldn’t believe that this little person just came from inside of me. Ira was there, holding my hand and tearing up over the grand entrance of our little tiny baby girl.

THE BEST GIFT EVER
We spent the following 48 hours in the hospital getting acquainted with our new little one. It truly felt like a honeymoon period. We watched her get all cleaned up, get all her little documentation and health tests taken care of, and took our 101 crash course on caring for a newborn (who knew that breastfeeding could be so difficult! Thank you Lord for lactation consultants!)—and of course got to spend hours just gazing into her new little eyes, touching her soft skin, hearing her tiny sounds, and cradling all her new little parts.

We both find it so unfathomable that this new small person is in the world because of us, and because God, in His infinite grace, mercy and goodness, gave us our little Gracie as a gift. We are so so blessed. And I am so happy to have been able to share this experience with all of you. I pray that your experience is just as excellent.

Take care,
Christy

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