Ok - well, she really arrived Thursday, July 1st, but just now getting around to updating the blog.
Thursday and all its happenings: Showed up to the hospital at 7:45AM to be induced. Got in a room and started all my fluids. As soon as I walked in to the L&D room, one of the nurses asked me how big my dr. said the baby was suppose to be. I said, "Like 6 1/2 or 7. But being a little late, she will probably be a little bigger." The nurse looked at me and said, "That is a 9 lb baby." I didn't believe that for a second. I got all settled and started my pitocin. The nurse, Cheryl, came in to check on me every 20 min to hike my dosage up by 2. By 14, I was having some contractions, but nothing major. My dr. said that more should be going on by now so the increased my dosage. The highest you can go is 40 and my dr. wanted me to get to 34. I was checked again by my dr. and he said I was still a 2. SO, we continued on and my contractions got to about a min. apart and the pain was coming on strong. I refused to get an epi. so that it wouldn't slow anything down. I did get a shot of "something" that was suppose to take the edge off the pain. That didn't happen. What it did do was make me sort of crazy like. I do remember saying, "This medicine makes you forget why you are even here." About then, I would have a major contraction and remember why I was there! After a full day, my dr. came in about 4:45 PM and we discussed my options. He didn't think that we were going to be going anywhere with giving me more drugs and he said a C-section was our best bet. I was ok with it since I was ready to get this process started. Not looking forward to a surgery, but needed to get her out safe and sound. So, it only took about 15-20 min before I had my epidural and headed off to the O.R. Artie got to come with me the whole time. They got me prepped and ready. Dr. Norwood came in and we got the ball rolling. Being that drugs were in my system, I remember most things, but it also is a little fuzzy. I remember asking Artie to give the the play by play of what they were doing to me while on the table. He stood up (even though he was asked to sit down and not get in the way) and watched the whole procedure. I just felt a lot of tugging and pulling and could hear my dr. talk his way through the whole thing. The next thing I hear is, "Ok, she is about to be here. Get your camera ready dad." So, Artie got ready to get a good shot and all I hear was a huge cry that sounded like a cat. Dr. Norwood held her up for me to see her and she was HUGE. They took her over to the warmer and clean up station. I sent Artie over there to take pictures and make sure she was ok. I kept trying to see her, but there were so many people in there it was really hard. Artie took some great shots and got her all fixed up. He brought her over and she was already ready to feed. She kept trying to eat on Artie's shirt. She had some good lungs and kept screaming at him. She was beautiful. Full head of hair, huge lips, and big chubby cheeks. They finish sewing me up and then we head to recovery. While in there, I get to feed Vivian and my family got to see her finally. They had to wait for a long time to even know if we were all ok. I got in the OR at about 5:45 and they didn't get to see me until 8. After being in recovery for 2 hrs., I got to go up to our room #734. If you know me well enough, I love that numbers match up so our room number was great - 7=3+4. Crazy...I know. We spent the next 3 days recovering and getting use to taking care of this bundle of joy. Not a lot of sleep was had at the hospital. We got to come home on Sunday, July 4th. Have been home nearly a week and have finally settled down a bit. I feed and Artie burps and keeps her content. She is a really easy baby and we pray she stays that way for a while. Here are a few pics of the special day!
