A Post for Miss Fifi

I'm just going to share some of what happend when she was born. Later I'll write about her since birth.

So, my due date was October 5th 2010. I know a lot of other pregnant women are very eager to have their baby early, but I felt like the longer she was in utero, the healthier she'd be and I really wasn't too uncomfortable. My mom delivered all of us kids 2 to 3 weeks late, so I thought I was going to go into labor late anyway. I was pretty patient, if I do say so myself.

On my due date I had a doctor's appointment. While I was waiting for the appointment to start, I think I had my first real contraction. I'd had Braxton Hicks contractions for like a month, but this one was different. It hurt. At the appointment, the doctor stripped my membranes. After that I continued to have contractions but they weren't regular at all. I just did regular things that night. I went shopping and picked up a few things. Then we ate dinner and went to bed.

I woke up on the 6th at 3:20am because the contractions were getting stronger and a little more regular. I didn't want to wake Rory up yet, so I started timing them myself. They were about 7 minutes apart. After a while I was having a hard time concentrating on the time and I figured that Rory wasn't going to be going to school or work, so I woke him up and had him time my contractions. By 5am the contractions were 3 minutes apart, so we got ready to go to the hospital. I took the fastest shower in the world between contractions. Then thought about eating something, but I felt nauseated and thought I'd just throw up so I didn't eat anything (stupid, stupid, stupid). We had had everything packed for the hospital for a few weeks by that point, so once we were ready we took everything and left.

I had everything else written out about the labor, then I decided that I didn't want to think about the labor anymore. I copied it into a word document which I may or may not share with Miss Fifi to send her on a guilt trip or something. I don't know. I'll just tell you, it involved hunger, thirst, pain, being generally uncomfortable, my epidural somehow being turned off, many many contractions, heartburn, and many many many hours of laboring. Like 23 hours. Anyone who has ever had a baby knows; it sucks. So, for those who've never had children and those who don't want to re-live their childbearing experience: I'll just skip to the good part.

At 12:55 am on October 7th 2010, Miss Fifi was born. (This is her nickname of course) She was 7 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long. The nurses immediately commented on her beautiful, long eyelashes.

I sent Rory over with the camera to get pictures while they cleaned her up. He came back to my side to show me our baby girl. Then I sent him back to take more. I couldn't get enough. She was beautiful.

The poor girl had a little trouble breathing, so she stayed in the NICU for about an hour while they put her on the CPAP (?) machine to clean out her lungs. She was so brave. When they were poking her all over, she took it like a champ. She is so sweet.

And it was all worth it.