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And Now, the Rest of the Story

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I've slept, I've eaten, I'm less agitated now.

Yesterday morning Marydalene woke me up at about 5:30 AM complaining of constant pain in her back and lower abdomen. We figured out that it was labor pains, and she was able to identify spikes in the pain. We started timing and they were coming roughly 5 minutes apart. A couple of hours of this and we decided to go to the hospital. We got there at about 9:30. She was dilated to a 4 or 4.5. A couple of hours later, she hadn't made any real progress, so her doctor decided to giver her something for the pain and send her home.

About 3:00 Mary decided that she was in enough pain that she needed to call her doctor and see what she could do. He told her that she should probably go to the doctor and get checked. We were debating how quickly to go to the hospital, because we didn't want to take the "walk of shame" again. She hadn't really had any classic contractions, it was just more of the steady pain. At 3:30 Mary's water broke, and that ended our debate. After dropping Timothy off at a neighbor/friend we got to the hospital at around 4:00 and had a baby at 4:25. Yep, that's quick. It was so fast that Marydalene was not able to have an epidural. I felt awful for her, because it obviously was terrible pain. One of the benefits of it being so fast though is that she didn't have to feel that pain for very long. It was also too fast for the doctor to get there, so Sarah was delivered by the nurses.

Another benefit of the quick labor is that Sarah spent so little time in the birth canal that she didn't get cone-headed. She almost looks like a cesarean baby. However, the stress of the fast birth was not good for poor little Sarah. She was not breathing at birth, and it took the nurses a lot of effort to get her going. They were able to get her started, but they did need to call in the respiratory team.

They brought her to the nursery and then she had another little struggle breathing. The nurses called in the respiratory therapist again and they were able to get her back. Since then she has been doing okay. She has been placed into the well-baby nursery.

Marydalene has not been able to feed her yet. Due to the stresses Sarah endured during delivery the doctor felt it was better to not feed her at least until morning as she would not likely be able to digest anything yet. She is on a maintenance IV until the doctor clears her to eat.

I think that is the story as it now stands if you have any questions feel free to put them in the comments and I'll update the post with answers.

I am posting this picture even though it's not a very good picture since it was not properly exposed. I do shoot in RAW so I was able to get it close. I decided to post it so that you could get a bit of an idea of her hair situation. She has a fair amount of hair, but it is blonde and difficult to see, especially since the picture was not properly exposed.

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Comments

  1. BarbaraJuly 9, 2008 at 9:31 AM

    Congrats!! That's quite the picture--the one on this post. The other one is really cute as well. She looks well filled out and healthy. I'm glad they were able to resolve her breathing issues. Technology is so great--allowing us to see a baby when she is only hours old. I'm happy for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. GrammyzanneJuly 9, 2008 at 9:37 AM

    She is one chubby little girl. She has lots of blonde fuzz. Glad things have settled down. Looking forward to actually being there!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lynda/MomJuly 9, 2008 at 12:15 PM

    Oh my goodness Jared and Mary!! That was quite the experience! I'm glad she didn't have to stay in the nicu. I just want you to know that Leslie was born with almost black hair and lots of it. You would never guess that now. Congratulations and best wishes for your new little one. Aunt Lynda

    ReplyDelete
  4. Laura StringhamJuly 9, 2008 at 5:36 PM

    Thank goodness she's here and will be ok! I get SO frustrated with hospitals when it comes to labor, I don't feel like they take us women seriously enough. I hope that Mary is feeling well. Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  5. LeslieJuly 9, 2008 at 8:55 PM

    Poor baby and poor momma. I would freak if the hospital sent me home when I was that dilated. I'm glad you made it to the hospital in time. Hope things continue to improve.

    ReplyDelete

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