How's Mama??

Hi everyone,

I'm finally gonna post since the birth of little Emma.

I'm doing well. Still recovering but surprisingly I felt pretty good after one and a half week.

Here is my birth story ...

We started with laboring at home and hoping we would have Emma at the house. The birth pool was set, candles and music going.

Everything started off really good. Water broke around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday and contractions started getting stronger few hours later around 8 p.m.. Labor progressed ... my midwife and doula there to guide me. Adam played gofer to fetch the items we needed and also to give me back rubs when I was in between the contractions.

I was getting in and out of the tub, tried different positions and stimulation to get the labor to progress. The midwife checked me a couple of times to see if I was dilated and effaced. I was at 9 and totally effaced.

2 am rolled around and nothing. After a good rhythm of contractions , the weirdest thing happened the contractions backed down and started tapering off. We all were getting fatigued, especially me. The Midwife suggested I get some rest, so I went to bed but couldn't really sleep since I would get these super strong contractions here and there.

It is known that first time moms have long labor. (This I did not know.)

In the morning on Wednesday we tried again and nothing.

The Midwife said to us that the water was nearing 24 hours of being broken she asked us if we wanted to go to the hospital and it is usually suggested that this long of labor needed some medical intervention. Both Adam and I agreed that we needed to transport to the hospital. We knew if things didn't work out at home that we would have a back up plan and we were ok with going to the hospital. All that really mattered was that I was ok and the baby was ok.

So we packed up and went ...

The hospital was very accommodating with our wishes and we gave them our hospital birth plan.

After checking in and getting situated, the nurses gave me Petocin to induce my labor. This really kicked my butt. The drug makes contractions what feels like a 100 times stronger, so I needed the epidural to take the edge off. Of course the epidural did not work completely and I was only numb on one side which took the edge off but I still felt the contractions. I think that was a good thing otherwise I might not have been able to push her out myself. There could have been a strong chance of delivering with a c-section if I couldn't which we did not want.

Finally after they administered the epidural, I started getting that crazy urge to push her out. Off to the delivery room with Emma's head poking out. The Doc had dimmed the lights and had some nice ambient music playing in the background. 20 minutes after midnight and after only 20 minutes of pushing, on August 7th 2008 Emma came into this world. Beautiful and healthy.

Yes, there was a bit of a scare, she possibly had meconium in her lungs due to the stress of the labor, but she was fine after a day. They did keep her in the hospital for 6 days just to make sure she was good and gave her a treatment of antibiotics.

We are so thrilled to have here her with us finally, as you can see with all her cute pictures.

More to come.