Meredith Grace

Well, Miss Meredith is almost 7 weeks old already and I'm just starting to write about her! She hasn't given me much time to myself in the first few weeks, so I am going to try to add as much as I can remember about the first month and a half. She is currently sleeping, so hopefully I can get a good post today...btw, I have never 'blogged' before, so this is all new to me, but decided this would be the best way to document my little girl's developments!
This picture is the one that we had made in the hospital when she not even a day old. She looks totally different already, but thought I'd start with this picture.
I guess the best way to begin is with her birth story... I was almost a week past my due date (1/25) and went to the doctor for another check up on Monday morning 1/30 and he decided that I needed to be induced the next day. So, Chris and I both decided not to go into work since the next day would be the big day. Well, we called the next morning as instructed and found out that they didn't have any room at Rex because every other woman in Raleigh decided to go into labor at the same time, so we'd have to wait. Well, Tuesday came and went and then Wednesday, 2/1 we didn't get into the hospital until 4:00. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, father-in-law and step mother-in-law had all come into town since we thought we would be having the baby on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit of pressure (completely self inflicted) about not being able to have this baby on my own and had a minor (Chris would say major) emotional meltdown over the whole thing.
Anyway, we finally made it to the hospital and they started my pitocin at about 5pm and then the waiting game began. Nothing was happening at all. They kept upping my pitocin and then they had to break my water around 11pm, which really started the contractions, but they wanted me to wait to get the epidural until my contractions were at a certain level since an epidural can sometimes slow things down. Well, I definitely was feeling the contractions and finally about 3am I was able to get the epidural, which was an event in itself.
The very un-friendly anestesiologist managed to hit some sort of nerve in my spinal cord and my right leg kicked involuntarily 3 times and it felt like an electric shock was running through me. Let's just say that at this point I wasn't sure if I was going to get through this thing since I thought this thing was going to make me feel better!! Once they got everything fixed with the epidural, I was quite happy to get some rest after it took effect.
Well, there was quite a bit of talk about a potential c-section since Miss Meredith didn't want to drop down at all and I wasn't dilating nearly enough, but thankfully my doctor let me go through the night trying some different positions to see if it would help her move further down. My blood pressure was a little touch and go through the whole thing, so I was stuck in the bed the entire time. I can't even tell you how many things I was hooked up to in order to monitor the baby and me.
Luckily, by about 1:00 the next afternoon, I was fully dilated and ready to go. We decided to use a method called labor down, which means that once you are fully dilated you rest for about and hour or so before you start to push. So, Chris took a shower and I rested for a bit and then started to push. I really only had to push for about 45 minutes, which wasn't all that bad. I definitely was feeling quite a bit, but am glad for that. There is nothing to describe the feeling of seeing our baby for the first time. Chris was an incredible coach and really helped me get through the whole thing.
I didn't get to hold her immediately because her heartbeat had been questionable during labor, dipping during contractions, so they whisked her over to the station where the special care nurses checked her over thouroughly. We found out that her heartrate was dropping because her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Nothing too serious, but that explained it. She definitely tried out her set of lungs immediately and she hasn't stopped using them since! She was perfectly healthy and Meredith Grace was born on February 2nd (Groundhog's Day) at 3:05pm, weighing 8 lbs 5 oz, and 21 inches long. I of course think she was gorgeous from the beginning, but then again I am a little partial :)