Monday, May 14, 2007

My baby girl is 1

Okay, so I am typically a very sentimental person. I keep track of every birthday/event/memory and never forget it. I'm the kind of person who could be walking in a store, see someone who i went to pre-school with (and never saw them since) and recognize them. To me, every person I meet stays with me. After I had Sophie I was so sad to leave the hospital b/c of the wonderful nurse, Peggy, that we had. So I'm saying all this to just give an intro...I'm a sentimental person.

Yesterday, my baby girl turned 1. I cannot believe it. Although the newborn colicky days seem so far off, I remember holding her in my arms in the hospital just moments after giving birth, like it was just yesterday. Back then, Sophie was a tiny little thing, so alert and observant, not missing much (hmmm...nothing's changed there!) Now, I see this bubbly little thing who waves at everyone, gives them her cheesy smile, and is Miss Explorer.

People always told me to not wish the early days away because before you know, they'll be graduating from college. I think I can understand that now. I don't ever want to go back to the colicky days, but you know what, in the whole scheme of themes, it is such a short moment in time.

Holding Sophie in my arms yesterday as she was sleeping, I just was brought to tears as I looked at her sleeping so peacefully. This precious little jewel who has filled my life with more joy than I ever thought possible, is growing up too fast for me! I am trying to treasure each moment b/c I know how quickly it goes by.

Happy Birthday, baby girl...you'll always be my baby, no matter how big you get.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

My birth story

My baby girl is 1 today, so thought I would re-post my birth story that I wrote a few days after Sophie was born...here it is!

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I had my last day of work on Friday, didn't feel any symptoms or signs that labor was pending. That night, I went to bed at 10:30 and woke up to change positions at midnight. When I did that, I felt this "gush"....I immediately said,"Jeremy! Something is happening!" I ran to the bathroom and there I continued to "gush", so I knew my water had broken. We called the hospital and they said to come in when contractions were every 3-5 minutes for an hour, or by 6 in the morning if contractions hadn't started yet. So Jeremy and I were busy getting last minute stuff together to go. I laid down for an hour, and by 2am, I was having contractions every 3-5 minutes, they felt more like menstrual cramps, not too bad. We left for the hospital at 3:15am, and by the time we got to the hospital, I was feeling the contractions more. At 4:30am, I started walking the hallways and by this point the contractions were really strong, but walking seemed to help a lot. After about an hour of this, it became too unbearable to walk so we went back to the room and tried to find different positions that worked. I tried the birth ball which I had really wanted to use but I felt worse with that. Finally, I found that sitting on the edge of the bed helped. The contractions kept intensifying in pain level, as well as time, I was having 45 second-1 minute contractions every minute and a half so there wasn't time to recover. At 5:30am, I was only dilated to 2 1/2 cm, but 90% effaced. The contractions kept coming and by 9am, when they checked me again, I was 4 cm, so I decided to get the epidural. As soon as I got the epidural, my contractions totally slowed down and were barely there. After about an hour, they decided to give me pitocin to increase my contractions again as they had pretty much stopped. The pitocin totally worked and according to the monitor, I was having contractions every minute (but b/c of the wonderful epidural, I didn't feel them!). However, they had a hard time getting a consistent reading of the baby's heart rate...it kept fluctuating. At one point, I had 3 or 4 other nurses rush in, b/c the heart beat couldn't be found...they immediately stopped the pitocin, gave me oxygen and switched positions and the heart beat was found again. They checked me at around 1pm and I was 6-7 cm dilated. At 3:30pm, the doctor came in (not my dr, but the on-call dr) and checked me and I was at 10cm so ready to push. It was so hard to feel when to push b/c I really couldn't feel anything still b/c of the contractions. However, during my pushing, the baby's heart rate started becoming very erratic and inconsistent. The dr checked me and said that, yes, the baby's head was down, but it was a bit on an angle so everytime I pushed, it would cause distress to the baby. After sometime, my baby's head was in the proper position, but still, every push caused the heart rate to go crazy, slow down, even stop. Once during a push, the heart beat monitor stopped beating and I immediately stopped pushing. The doctor said that we needed to get the baby out and he was ready with the vaccuum. He ended up doing an episiotomy b/c my baby was just not fitting and we needed to get the baby out. I had a 2nd degree episiotomy, and after that, the baby came out quickly and well. I heard my husband say, "IT"S A GIRL" (we did not find out before). My placenta came out a few minutes later. There were definitely some scary moments, but I'm so thankful for the incredible nurses and doctors, and my husband for his awesome support. I just look at little Sophie right now, and I'm amazed!