Our Little Baby Blog

Birthday

So for those of you who haven't heard already, our baby has arrived! Miss Anna Madge Roth was born on March 19, 2007 at 7:02 a.m., weighing in at 6 lbs 10 oz. What a ride it was!

A quick synopsis:

Mike and I went to bed around 10:30 p.m. on sunday night, March 18. I was a little disappointed that I hadn't gone into labor that weekend because I was soooo ready to have this baby. I mean really ready! In fact, I'd made Mike drive me around to various organic grocery stores the previous day to purchase raspberry leaf tea, which, according to some old wives' tales, can induce labor. Turns out it can't be found in the specialty places but can be found in good old fashioned Dominicks. Who knew? I also took a really long walk on Saturday and Sunday just to see if that helped either. Well, Sunday came and went and it looked like I was heading nowhere except work the next morning.

Little did I know...

Around 1:45 in the morning (this is Monday a.m. now) I felt this huge gush and KNEW my water had broken. I leapt out of bed and ran for the bathroom, yelling to Mike that he needed to get up fast because my water had broken. Mike, a bit dazed and confused, got up and immediately started putting our last minute items into our hospital bags and got us ready to head to the hospital. We arrived around 2:30 a.m. and got checked in immediately. My doctor had phoned ahead so they were prepared for us when we arrived. However, I still wasn't having any contractions. This isnt entirely uncommon but once the water breaks, you've got to get the baby out because that's its protective sack so if you're not in labor, the doctors will give you drugs to start contractions.

All of this was explained to us at the hospital and we were told to just get as much rest as we could because I'd have a very long day of labor ahead of me. In addition, since I was getting an epidural, I was told to expect a few doctors to come in and prep me for that and take a routine ultrasound that would confirm what we already knew - that the baby was head down and in good shape... Again, little did we know...

Well, that's when things took a dramatically different turn. The ultrasound doc came in and put her little wand over my belly to look for the baby's head... but it wasn't in the right spot. Miss Anna, it turns out, was breech. The doctors told us that we needed to be prepared for a c-section and that we'd be heading into the OR as soon as there was an opening... within the next hour or two.

We were SHOCKED. We had been told for weeks that she was head down and in good position so we hadn't even considered the possibility that I'd have a c-section. Plus, I hadn't even had a contraction yet so I literally was skipping over the entire labor portion of this birth. I felt a really immediate sense of loss because I couldn't imagine not going through labor and I knew that since this was first child, any future children we have will also have to be c-sections (turns out that isn't necessarily true, but that's what I thought.) I started to get upset, but luckily Mike was right there with me reminding me that labor and contractions are typically the portions that women WANT to skip over and that regardless of how our little girl was born, the goal was just to get her out in the healthiest manner possible. It doesn't matter how it happens, just as long as it happens!

So with that in mind, they prepped me for surgery and away we went. I gotta say c-sections aren't fun. But, at the time, I was so overwhelmed by it all that I really just had to take it minute by minute and not worry too much about anything beyond exactly what the nurses and doctors were telling me. In retrospect I think it was better to be surprised, it gave me very little time to worry and fret about it. Once I had the spinal block and the surgery was about to begin, Mike got to come in and sit next to me. That felt good because he immediately started talking to me and taking my mind off of what was going on. He is my rock and I am so lucky that he knew just what to say to calm me.

Oddly enough, it probably wasn't more than 15 minutes or so before the doctor said we had a beautiful baby girl. They pulled her out and there was this silence of maybe 5 seconds or so (but it fet like 5 minutes) while we waited to hear her cry. And then WAH, WAH, WAH, pierced through the air. Needless to say, Mike and I immediately started crying and laughing and crying and crying. It was perhaps the finest sound I've ever heard. Mike was then invited to head over to the corner and see her while they finished up my surgery. He started narrating everything - how much she weighed, what they were doing, etc. and then they bundled her up and he brought her over to me to see. Oh my... I can't explain the feeling that washes over you when you see your child. It's like seeing God/Heaven/Yourself/Your future all at once. It's amazing, truly truly amazing.

It turns out that Anna was "frank" breech. This means she was sort of folded in half, with her ankles up by her head. Poor thing. The pictures are a bit crazy. Her legs are just fine and just needed some time to work themselves down, which they did immediately. Our new working theory is that she was always breech and that when the doctors felt her "bottom" and feet, they were actually feeling her head and feet. Thank goodness for modern medicine because a labor like this might not have ended well if we hadn't had really good medical care.

So that's the essential elements of our little Anna's birth. Anna and I spent the next few days in the hospital, with Mike by our side. The hospital and nurses are amazing and we're so grateful for all they did. We'll continue to update the blog with pictures and entries on how things are going (pardon the misspellings and typos because I'll probably be writing these updates with one hand while holding Anna with the other.) We realize that we've been home just one week and already we've learned and experienced so much that it's hard to get it all down at once.

Thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Anna is a wonderful gift from God and we are overjoyed to have her here with us. Thank you, thank you, thank you, God!!