"Penny's" from Heaven

She is here!

And she is perfect. The labor and delivery, however, was definitely not. On Wednesday (my due date) the doctor stripped my membranes since I still had not even had 1 contraction. She told me she would let me go 1 week late, that meant that I had until the following Wednesday for something to happen. I started having contractions that day, but they were very weak. On Friday she stripped them again. Then, she found out through ultrasound that the baby's bowels were starting to fill with meconium. We were worried that she would pass it during the delivery and aspirate it, possibly causing pneumonia. Because of this, we decided not to wait the whole week. She gave me through the weekend, and scheduled me to be induced at the hospital Monday morning. I really did not want to be induced, since I was planning on delivering naturally, and I knew that pitocin contractions could be completely miserable without pain meds. So, I started walking. I walked as much as possible Friday and Saturday. By Saturday evening I had just about given up on it starting on its own, when it did. So we tried to get a night's sleep (which was impossible for me due to the pain) and went to the hospital at 2am. I had planned to wait longer but the contractions were going down to my legs, making it very difficult to walk. I was only dilated to a 2 so they recommended I walk some more. I told them it was impossible for me to do so at that point, so they decided to give me the pitocin. The contractions were very painful and were in my abdomen, back and thighs. Fortunately, about that time I figured out that the pain in my legs went away if someone pressed as hard as they could on my adrenals. So poor Scott pushed so hard all night on my back that his hands were swollen the next day. Our moms both showed up at about 8 and helped Scott with that.

By 1 pm I was still only at a 4, after 18 hours of labor, with several of those hours being helped with pitocin, so they decided to break my water. When they did we found that the baby had passed the meconium. Breaking the water also dropped her right onto my cervix. During the last month or so of my pregnancy, she decided she wanted out but wasn't going to do it the old fashioned way, and would hit me in the cervix all the time. It's very pleasant, like being kicked in the crotch, inside the crotch. So of course when she did this while I was in labor it was no picnic. What's worse, it made me feel like I had to push. I was fighting it with everything I had- they say to blow when you are fighting pushing and I was doing that so much that they put me on oxygen. This is how I looked most of the night, but with someone pushing on my back.

The nurse kept checking to see if I had shot forward all of a sudden, but no matter how many times she checked me, I never went past a 4 1/2. At this point, I knew a c-section was looking more and more evident. The nurse told me around 4:00 the doctor was going to come in and talk to me, and I knew what she was going to say. She came in and told me that not only was I progressing very slowly, but the baby had passed meconium AND was "sunny-side-up", which was what was responsible for the extremely painful contractions, and would make it harder to get her out. On top of all that, her head was pushing on my cervix and both her head and my cervix were starting to swell. The doctor said she recommended a c-section and if we wanted to do it, we should do it now. Scott and I looked at each other, and then at our moms, who said they were not part of the decision and left the room. We decided to pray about it.

While I was preparing for this labor, sometimes I would think about if I ended up having to get a c-section. During these imaginings, my reaction was always the same: tears. But when we finished our prayer, we both had the same answer: get the baby out, and we both felt peace with it. I knew that if I said no, if would be for selfish reasons, and since I was about to become a mom, my days of being selfish were over; we had to think only about this child. So we told the doctor and they started prepping me right away, which was the worst part of the whole experience. They weren't going to give me the anesthetic until we got into surgery, so most of the prepping was done with no pain meds and the contractions continuing (which for the last few hours had been on top of each other with no break in between thanks to that lovely pitocin)- including placing a urinary catheter. And, I had to be on my back for it all, which not only was more painful in and of itself, but that meant no one could push on my back. Finally they wheeled me into surgery and gave me a spinal block, which was the weirdest thing I have ever felt. It made the contractions completely gone, but I would not recommend it. I hated looking at my feet and telling my toes to wiggle and having absolutely nothing happen. It freaked me out that if something happened- say an earthquake or whatever- there was no way I could even move at all. The nurses couldn't believe the change in my demeanor- they kept saying, "Who is this girl?" I went from not talking at all with my eyes shut, to being chatty and smiley.

They finally cut her out, which was a little frustrating. I was excited to see her but all I could do was listen as other people said, "She's so cute!" "Look at all that hair!", etc. I love this picture of her grand entrance into the world:
I kept trying to get Scott to videotape it so I could see it later, but he wouldn't. I did get the anesthesiologist to take some pictures.

Here we are meeting for the first time:
It was love at first sight.

Proud daddy:

Then, they took her to the nursery to monitor her for 3 hours before I could hold her. Here I am holding her for the first time:
We had a special visitor while we were there:
Dr. Finklestein! He was Scott's pediatric oncologist. He is a wonderful man who made it to our wedding and still keeps up with Scott. Scott was born at Long Beach Memorial and his cancer was also treated there, so it was significant for us that Penny be born there. It also made it convenient for Dr. F to stop by during his rounds.



We feel so fortunate to have this sweet spirit join our family. We are so excited about what the future brings, but enjoying these moments while we have them.