Lexie "Sessie!": February 2008

Motherhood has taken over and the blog has been ignored(facebook hasn't though of course!) We had our last doctors appointment on Thurs, Feb 14th and found out that afternoon that I was to be induced the following morning! Excitement and reality that parenthood was upon us set in! About an hour or so after arriving at the hospital, I was given a cervidol to help "ripen and ready" my cervix, little did we know how long the whole process would take!

Very little happened on Friday, I had a few minor cramps that brought me back to the days of teenage periods, but not enough to call them a contraction of any sort. Chris went home that night and I was awakened at midnight by my nurse and a resident to check the cervidol, well she checked and then some. Apparently, I have a very high cervix and this doctor had little hands, so in the words of James Tiberius Kirk, " to go where no man has gone before..." that doctor certainly did, OUCH!! She had to put it back in the proper spot, but first, accidentally pushed it up further, anyway, enough on that, still makes me want to close my legs and shudder in the memory of it all!

Saturday morning brought the return of Chris and a room full of doctors. Little had changed in my still closed cervix, so both doctors decided to try it again for another 24 hour period! The next 24 hours were filled of walking the hallways, watching movies and stealing internet from somewhere! Fast forward to Sunday morning......

FINALLY, one of my doctors was at the hospital! THANK GOODNESS!! All of the doctors that we have dealt with from Dr. Belland's clinic were incredible, young, energetic, very passionate about what they do. Sunday brought us Dr. Sarah Glaze, she reminds me a lot of my friend Tracy Arcand that I taught with at SHS, upbeat, fun, very positive. She realized quickly that we had been there for 2 days and were tired and frustrated. Pro-active could be her middle name, she "ruptured my membrane" around 10 that morning and I was in active labour within an hour or so.

Labour, oh what can I say about labour. Once they got the oxytocin going, things speeded up quickly. I don't quite know how to describe contractions once they got rolling, but it was like a complete pain down there like I've ever known! It rocks your world, for a minute, gives you time to recover, then starts up all over again! By about 4:00 I couldn't take anymore and was given the epidural. It helped tremendously, allowing me to relax, but then they decided that they needed to put the fetal monitor on Lexie's head! Well, that took 5 different tries with different monitors to finally get one that worked, more poking, prodding and exploration of my nether regions!

As we reached closer to 5:00, Lexie's heart rate was dropping to scary levels and with 57 hours of hospital time under my belt already, when Dr. Glaze gave us the alternatives,keep trying and see if I dilate(at this point I was only at 3-4 cm) or do the c-section and keep Lexie safe. Hmmm, no argument from me, c-secion it was!
I was numbed even further to the point I had complete function back in my hands(very exciting) and didn't feel anything, except a little something when they pushed down on my upper stomach to get her out. She came out a healthy 7 lbs 6 oz and 21 inches long. I wasnt granted the Tank of a daughter all the ultrasounds said I was getting, instead we got a beautiful, tiny little girly girl! A lot of the times with babies, people say "oh she's so cute" to be polite, I can happily say that Lexie is beyond cute, no doubt about it!

We stayed in the hospital for 3 days afterwards to make sure that the two of us were ok. Healing from the C-Section has been a bit better overall than I expected. I still experience a bit of pain every day, but it lessened considerably once those nasty staples were taken out. It was all worth it :-) She is just the most awesome, happy, lovable little baby. She already has daddy wrapped around her little finger and I know myself, with our little family now, whatever life may throw in our path, I've never been this happy :-)