Half & Half

So it has been a while since posting a blog entry but Paytan is down for a nap so I thought I would take this opportunity to make a quick entry about her first doctors appointment. I know that the first appointment isn't that exciting but there were a few things for us that made it quite interesting.

First I need to give you some background info on our pediatrician. He is a nice man, with a bit of a southern drawl who has been in his field for 30+ years. Dr. Burns has a very dry sense of humor, which some people would not find very fitting for a pediatrician but for us he is great. Now when my family first met Dr. Burns it was the night Paytan was born and he came out to give them an update:

Dr. Burns: "Well baby's fine but we had to kick start her to get her going on her own."

Family: "How is she doing now?"

Dr. Burns: "She's doing just fine. She was sunny side up so she has a nice big bruise on her head and her nose is smooshed to one side."

Katelyn: "Will it straighten out eventually?"

Dr. Burns: "She's okay. It isn't any worse than yours."

If you know Katelyn, you can imagine her reaction to this statement, especially since it was about 2AM. So hopefully that gives you an idea about our pediatrician and his character.

Now on to the first appointment. Kris and I were excited to see how much weight Paytan has gained. It has actually turned into a little competition in the family every time Paytan has a doctors appointment. Everyone guesses how much she weighs, Price Is Right rules, closest without going over. So when Paytan was born she was 5 pounds 6 ounces. She lost a bit in the hospital and was 4 pounds 15 ounces when she left the hospital. Then 5 days later at the first appointment she was 5 pounds 4 ounces, so almost back to birth weight. In the state of Oregon the average weight gain for newborns is about 3/4 of an ounce per day and in Lincoln County, with the great support programs for breast feeding, the average is about an ounce per day. Well Paytan had gained about twice the national average, so needless to say she was thriving.

Kris and I had started to write down questions to ask the doctor, as many new parents do so they don't end up calling the doctor or their answering service 15 times a day. We were going through our questions and one that we had noticed the last day in the hospital was that when Paytan was nursing which ever side she was laying on would turn bright red. I mean lobster red! And she would have a perfect line down the middle of her body. I had asked the nurse if she knew what this was all about and she had said that it was something that happened like when you lay on your arm and it turns red. I figured the nurse probably had seen this often so I didn't really think anything of it, until we got home.

The first few days at home Kris and I noticed that Paytan still had the same line and redness that she had in the hospital, although it was lighter and lighter each day. So we just thought we would ask the doctor.

Back to the appointment. Our last question for Dr. Burns was about the redness, which actually was happening while Dr. Burns was examining Paytan. He stopped, stepped back and blink his eyes, some what doing a double take. I thought "oh no, something is wrong with my baby." Then Dr. Burns came to and said "well, this little one is a harlequin." Kris and I looked at each other and back to the doctor with very puzzled looks on our faces. Dr. Burns proceeded to tell us that Paytan has a condition known as the Harlequin condition.

NOW I WANT TO WARN YOU NOT TO GOOGLE HARLEQUIN BABY BECAUSE IT IS COMPLETE DIFFERENT THAN WHAT PAYTAN HAS AND THE PICTURES OF IT ARE HORRIFIC!!!!! HARLEQUIN BABY IS A DISEASE AND PAYTAN HAS THE HARLEQUIN CONDITION, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

Basically this condition happens in babies that are premature. What happens is that their immune system is underdeveloped and when they are laying on their side their little bodies can't decide which side regulate the blood flow of, so one side gets more blood than the other. It is a perfectly normal condition and something that will go away over time. It is like when you mind is thinking about two really big tasks at the same time but you can't solve either without focusing on just one at a time, kind of like a bit of an overload. So the body focuses on just one side of the body and not the other. Then once the baby is back on it's back the body returns to normal. Dr. Burns said that he will go years between babies who have this condition, so apparently it is pretty rare, maybe why there is such little information about it online. Harlequins can either be half & half or quarters, which either way is kind of interesting. So interesting that Dr. Burns stuck his head out of the examine room and called the receptionist and two nurses into the room by shouting "Hey anyone want to see a harlequin?" I kind of felt like my daughter was a sideshow at the circus at this point but oh well. I guess it you get a chance to see something rare, I would take it.

Unfortunately by the time I started this blog, Paytan's condition has somewhat subsided so I don't have a picture of it. But Kris did some research to find out more information about this condition, which is where we found Harlequin Baby (AGAIN DO NOT GOOGLE IT!). Kris was able to find a blog that a woman had written about this condition as one of her twin children had it. IF you would like more information you can see her blog at : http://www.tclong.net/journal/?p=39.

Splish Splash!

If you have ever given a puppy a bath, you know how taxing and difficult this can be to accomplish. Puppies wiggle, squirm, try to climb out of the tub, sink or other facility you are bathing them in, not to mention trying to get shampoo on them, thoroughly clean them and get them rinsed. It just makes me tired just thinking about doing that. Well take away all of the fur on the puppy and the slipperyness (if that's a word) factor multiplies ten fold, that is what it is like giving a baby, especially a newborn baby, a bath.


Here is Paytan's first bath, well not her first bath because that was given to her in the hospital (by a nurse that we refer to as either Quasi Moto or Frumpy Pigskin, a long story but she wasn't very nice to anyone) but I wasn't present for that bath as I was in surgery, so this is my first time giving Paytan a bath. Thanks to my parents for getting us a Flip video camera for our anniversary this year. This is how we are able to bring you this video and the many more to come as we reach those milestones during the first year of life with Paytan (and beyond because honestly do you think I am going to stop capturing my child on film once she turns 1? I think not.) Also thanks to my mom for all of the help in bringing Paytan home and guiding my through the process of bathing a newborn, which is a bit more to think about than with a puppy.

There's No Place Like Home

So after spending five days in the hospital, it all came down to a battle of the doctors, my doctor vs. Paytan's doctor to see which of the two of us would be allowed to go home first. The stipulations were that because Paytan was a month early and I had lost so much blood after surgery both of us had to stay in the hospital to be monitored, just in case (which side note has become my own person mantra like when packing the diaper bag, grocery shopping or anything else in life that I plan to do.)

So here we were, Paytan and I, waiting patiently to get the "OK" to head home and start own incredible journey together. I was surprisingly feeling a ton better after being bed ridden for three days and loosing half of my blood, so I was a little more than annoyed when Paytan's doctor came in, gave her to once over and said she was free to go. Me on the other hand, had to wait. It wasn't until three hours later that my doctor finally came in and said that if I felt up to it, I could go home but not before we all had our picture taken together.



First, look at how tin y Paytan is and yes she is still so cute! Second, if you can take your eyes off me and my glorious beauty in this picture there is some explanation that needs to be put forth. The reason that I am holding up a little pair of socks is because my doctor, Dr. Morishita, is absolutely in love with Paul Frank stuff particularly "Small Paul" as many of those items are for babies and little kids and with her being an OB it it rather fitting. Here is something that Paytan has that Dr. Morishita said she wished they had in "big people's size:"



After all of the photo-ops were complete, action was immediately taken to get Paytan and I ready to go home. Mom and Kris turned into a couple of pack mules because as you can imagine what it is like when you go on vacation for 5 days, Kris, Paytan, Mom and I all had a ton of stuff in the hospital room that needed to be organized, packed and taken out to the car. While everyone else was taking care of the packing business, I told them that there was one more thing that I wanted to do before we left the hospital and that was to take a bath. Not just any bath but a bath in the best jacuzzi bath tub ever! I mean think about the most relaxing bath you have ever taken and then picture the mommy bath that gave birth to that bath tub and that is what I was relaxing in, fitting analogy. It was so great to be able to take a bath after being bed ridden for three days and then only getting to take a shower the last two days due to stitches. This bath tub had jets in all the right places that went the complete length of my back but as I relaxed and stretched out in this enormous bath tub, I realized that there were strategically placed jets at my feet as well. I have never been more relaxed in my entire life, even more than the hour long massage I got as part of my pre-wedding prep. I stayed in the bath for about 30 minutes and I really didn't want to leave for a number of reasons. 1) I could finally take a piping hot bath, which wasn't allowed while pregnant. 2) I would have to go home and settle for my less than stellar bath tub in my own bath room. 3) I was still pretty weak and this tub was deep so it was actually physically difficult to get out of the tub but Kris was able to help me out (I won't describe this situation because you don't need to know that much information but it was really funny.)

So I got out of the tub, got dressed and put together and then it was time to get Miss Paytan ready to go out into the world and meet the day. Instead of describing this process of getting her ready and loading her up, I will let you see a brief glimpse of what we went through:



Once we were all ready to go, the nurse came in and checked Paytan out in her car seat (thanks mom we wouldn't have been able to take her home with out it.) Also I was to be loaded into a wheel chair because I was still pretty weak and kind of still relaxed from the great bath. The nurse wheeled me out of the Labor and Delivery unit, with Mom behind me and Kris carrying Paytan's car seat. Now as you can see from the video Paytan was in pink. Yet as we went to get on the elevator, an older woman stopped us, I guess knowing that we had spent some time in the Labor and Delivery unit and said "Oh how cute, how is HE doing?" Wait can you hear that? It is my head exploding while I am writing this as I think about this women calling my daughter a boy. Yeah a bit of a touchy issue with me, especially since Paytan was head to toe IN PINK!!!!! Now if she was color blind or possibly going senile I can understand the generic assumption but PINK, I mean PINK! Really? OK, moving on and trying to get over that episode (another side note, not the first time this has happened and I am sure it will crop up in future blog posts when someone refers to Paytan as a boy.)

Here is a video of us actually leaving the hospital building and getting Paytan into the car. Kris had his own battle that day with the car seat to make sure that it was level but after a bit of swearing, finegling and adjusting the car seat was in, success! Then I was loaded into the car and we were off like a herd of turtles in a sand storm (it's not actually a herd it is a turn, bale, dole or nest of turtles but you get the idea. Also it was really cute because Kris drove all the way home like an 85 year old man going no more than about 25 mph and I think his blinker was on for at least 5 blocks. (One last side note, as soon as the door of the car was shut I immediately burst into tears due to all of those fabulous left over pregnancy hormones.)

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet ~ Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600.

One of the most common questions that both my husband and I got while I was pregnant was "do you have a name picked out?" Of course, this was after we had gone to the ultrasound appointment and were told we were having a little girl. At first my response was "not yet but we do have a list." At the time I thought that having many options for a name for our little girl was a good idea but I didn't realize how much anxiety this list, even a narrowed down list, would create.

We probably had, at the most, 15-20 names that we really liked and eventually we were going to sit down and were going to narrow down the list to 2-3 names. Both Kris and I agreed that we wanted to wait to pick a name until we could see her but by the time that we were heading to the hospital a month early, we had only narrowed it down to four names. Yet before I get into the name choosing ceremony, I think a little background information about how our family chooses names is in order.

In November of 2009 my parents decided that it was time to get another dog. (I know I am comparing naming a dog to naming a baby but you will see why it was so hard for Kris and I to settle on a name until we absolutely had to.) My dad sent out an email to the entire family including Kris and I, Kate and her boyfriend Chris (yes two K/Chris' in the family, easier for my dad to remember) and my mom asking for any suggestions for dog names. There were pictures of the puppies so we could kind of get an idea about names for the newest Stone addition. We were to send in our suggestions via email by the end of the week, Dad would compile the list and send out the potential names. About a week later we received another email with the list of names and we were to choose our top five, email those back and we would repeat the process again. We did this twice more, choosing our top three and then our top one. Needless to say that this was an extremely involved process, with many emails that contained jokes, threats and innuendos. In the end we decided on naming the chocolate lab Porter and went from there.

Now back to our baby. Each and every time some asked the "name" question, I would rerun the above scenario in my mind and become really anxious because I want certain that we would have to go through something similar to name our baby and it would be ten times the process of naming a dog.

About a week before Paytan was born, Kris and I were talking about names and we came to the realization that both of us have grandmothers named Patricia. At this time we had four first names picked out: $Audrey, Lucy, Paytan and Elliot. Audrey has the dollar sign next to it not because we wanted her to be like Ke$ha but because my dad really liked that name and said "now, if you go with Audrey there might be a little more money earmarked in my will for her. I'm just saying." Lucy was an option because one day Kris and I were in the car and we both realized that we didn't have any qualms with Lucy, so on the list it went. Paytan and Elliot were also options and were kind of emergency backup names just in case the ultrasound tech made a mistake and Paytan actually ended up being a boy.

We went through the list of first names with the middle name of Patricia and it seemed to work with each of the options. WE HAD MADE OUR FIRST NAME DECISION! Even though it wasn't a first name, it was part of her name that we had agreed upon and we were very happy that we could pass on the namesake of Patricia to our little girl.

Here is a picture of my Graymo and I when I was little:

Here is a picture of Kris' grandma Pat:

Ok, now let's get down to the business of the first name. Like I said before, we had the four options of Audrey, Lucy, Elliot and Paytan. For the first two days of her life, Paytan was actually referred to Er Baby Cook on all official hospital paper work because Kris and I were recovering from the delivery and hadn't really thought about a name.

On day three, Kris and I were sitting in our hospital room and were looking at our baby. I said "we really need to pick a name." We both looked at her, lying there peacefully in here bassinett, and we both agreed that she didn't look like an Audrey or a Lucy, two of the names that were more towards the top of the list. Then we started to throw the options of Elliot and Paytan around. Elliot kind of fell by the wayside in the natural flow of the conversation and we fixated on Paytan. "What do you think of Paytan?" I said. "I like it" said Kris. "Ok, well then how do we spell it?" I said. Then I immediately got out a piece of paper and began to write down Paytan with as many different spellings as I could think of: Peyton, Payton, Paytin, Paeton, Peighton, Paytan and I think there were about ten other options. I write in cursive all of the time because my printing looks like a second grader's handwriting and as soon as I wrote her name Paytan I knew I had found the right option. Looking through the list I said "well I think I found one that I like." "Which one?" asked Kris. "I like P A Y T A N because I can picture it written on a pair of Mickey Mouse Ears" I said with a smile.

Kris smiled at me and I smiled back. "We made another decision about our daughter" I said. We were really excited about the name and couldn't wait to post it on facebook.

Once we started to tell people what her name was, the nicknames began to flow. For me, her nickname is piglet, which actually came before her actual name. When she first was handed to me after she was born, she was a little stuffy and made little grunting noises. I said "she sounded like a little piglet" which for me stuck as a nickname. For my mom, she kept call her peanut, which was a nickname that was already taken by Katelyn when she was little, so that wasn't an option. Some of the other nicknames have been peggles, princess pei pei, pay, snuffalufagus, butter bean captain crunch pants and so on. I am sure that other nicknames will surface but for now my little piglet is just fine with me. Oink oink baby!

A normal day or so we thought.

Thursday August 12 was a normal day for my husband Kris and I. He had gotten up to play "old man" basketball in the morning while I got ready to teach my last day of interpersonal before the baby was born (one month and counting). I had a doctors appointment and then I was going to head to class, while Kris would head home to finish packing for a long overdue vacation, with a huge baby shower and then spending a week just the two of us (plus Cage, the dog) at our cabin in eastern Oregon. It was a day that the two of us had looked forward to for a really long time and little did we know but there was another reason for this anticipation. The next 24 hours would completely turn our world upside down!

9:30 AM~We headed out the door to the doctor's office for a routine check up, me in my car and Kris in the escape with Cage because we had packed Cage's bag for vacation and it was in the car which caused Cage to look dreadfully sad when we tried to leave the house without him. So, Kris decided to take Cage with us as the appointment was only to last about 30 minutes.


9:40 AM~I head into the medical records department to get a copy of my prenatal paperwork so that if something happens while we were on vacation, I would have all of my charts and notes with me. Better safe than sorry. Yet when I asked for my paper work they had said the clinic asked for it back for my appointment that day. This caused a little frustration because I submitted a request for a copy of my paperwork a week before and really how long does it take to run a stack of papers through the copy machine?


9:45 AM~A bite defeated but stubborn enough to go complain to someone else, I walk down to the doctor's office, where I find Kris waiting patiently for me. I check in with the wonderful gal at the front desk who, with a wink and a smile, hands me an envelope with my name on it and says "not how it is suppose to be done but records has a tendency to take forever with requests, so when the official one comes just act normal." Shh, don't tell medical records!


10:00 AM~Finally my name is called to go back, pee in a shot glass sized cup (tougher than you think), get weighed like a cow getting ready for show (up to 208, yes I just posted my weight) and head to my room to wait even longer for the doctor to come in.


10:15 AM~At this point I am getting a bit nervous because I need to leave by 10:30 at the latest if I am going to make it to Albany for the start of class at noon. I keep looking at Kris and asking for the time, which he so patiently tells me with a reassuring "don't worry, you'll have plenty of time." I knew I would have time especially since I told my students that I might be a bit late but still I hate being late.


10:30 AM~Doctor comes in. Dr. Morishita is really a great doctor and I understand that she is busy with appointments and delivering babies and whatnot, so I keep telling myself that I need to be patient as a patient. The checkup begins and we listen to baby's heartbeat, check my blood pressure and see if there are any questions. My blood pressure is a bit high but I tell her that "it is probably because I just dealt with medical records" and she laughs, saying "you're probably right." Then Dr. Morishita turns to Kris and I with a more than normal serious look on her face and says "I know you guys are planning on leaving for a long vacation but we really don't like people to travel after 35 weeks and you are entering into your 36th week. Are you having any contractions?" Now this is a question that many people had started to ask me and my initial response was "why don't you ask me if I have ever been kicked in the balls because I really have nothing to compare it to, so how would I know?" I simply responded with the fact that I was having some discomfort and cramping which I guess are contractions? She responded "would you like me to check your cervix to see if there has been any change just to make sure?" I wanted to make sure that things were ok before leaving town, so I agreed, Dr. Morishita stepped out, I got into position and the doctor came back in. "Well, I would say that you are about 1-2 cm and about 90% effaced" says Dr. Morishita. "There has definitely been some change because at the last appointment you were 1 cm and about 70% effaced. That was six days ago, so yeah there has definitely been some change, so I would like to send you upstairs and hook you up to the monitors just to see if you are having contractions, to be safe" Dr. Morishita says. I look at Kris with a little annoyance on my face but agreed because its a good idea to be "safe."


10:45 AM~Kris and I head over to registration and they ask if I am having any pain. I stupidly reply "yes" so they immediately send me to the ER registration. Now we have gone to ER before and needless to say I was a bit more annoyed and frustrated at this point but again agreed because I wanted to be "safe."


10:50 AM~Sitting in the ER registration room, answering a laundry list of questions and getting more and more annoyed. In between questions, I was frantically searching online on my phone (I LOVE MY iPHONE!) for our department secretary's phone number to let him know about my situation and that I would not be able to make it to class. My students would just have to get over me canceling class, I think they can manage. The nurse from labor and delivery comes in to the room to take us upstairs, yet we still aren't registered, as we were suppose to register at the first desk we went to, so we headed back to general registration to get the necessary paperwork done.


11:00 AM~Finally we make it upstairs to the labor and delivery exam room and I get hooked up to a blood pressure cuff (which goes off every five minutes, more annoyance), a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor. Kris at this point has passed his threshold for hunger and inquires about lunch. We decide that the doctor will probably be a while so he heads out to take Cage home, who has been in the car the entire time and to get some lunch. I called my mom to update her on the situation and told her once I talked to the doctor I would call her back.


11:05AM~Like two ships passing in the night, as soon as Kris leaves, Dr. Morishita comes in. "I really want to talk to you and your husband about the situation and about going on vacation" she says. "He just left to get some lunch and to take the dog home, because he has been in the car all morning" I respond. "Funny, I was just heading out to grab some lunch and let my dog out as I live close by" she replies. Then we came to the conclusion that she could do the lunch/dog thing like Kris and will probably will be back about the say time and we could all talk about the options.


12:00PM~Kris comes back with lunch and I have to pee again, or so I thought. I went to the bathroom and came back to the bed and I was still going. "Weird, I think somethings wrong" I said. Kris responds "wrong like, where?" "Well my pants are wet" I respond as I stand up and sure enough there is a puddle underneath me. "I think your water broke" Kris says as he runs out to the nurses station to inform them of the situation. Sure enough, water broken!


12:30PM~Dr. Morishita comes back and says "well we were going to talk about the options but your water has broken, so you aren't going anywhere. You're staying here and having a baby, yeah!" I quickly called my mom and said "well I think the baby shower is out this weekend because my water broke." My mom said "wait, what? Really? I'll call you back." Then she hung up. I assume at this point phone calls, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, tweets, texts, emails and facebook posts clogged up the networks as my mom spread the word, ran around like a chicken with her head cut off and ran home to pack and come to Newport.



AT THIS POINT MY HEAD EXPLODED! THE NEXT TIME I GO OUTSIDE I WILL HAVE A BABY WITH ME, AHHHHHHHHHHHH!




I know that to this point there have been a lot of details and dialog but the next 12 hours will go much quicker, mostly thanks to the large amount of drugs that I was on and the fact that I will be posting information that I got second hand from other people.


1:00PM~I get my IV placed, which was interesting because I guess I am a bleeder and when the nurse hit the vein, it looked like something had been slaughtered in my room. Then I got petosin, a synthetic version of the hormone that causes contractions and it certainly worked because I could only stand the contractions for a few hours before I needed something for the pain.


4:00PM~I got my first pain shot, which was fabulous! It really took the edge off. We were waiting for someone to go home from one of the birth suites and for the room to be clean so that we could move into our room, in which we would be spending the next five days.


5:00PM~After another shot of fetinol and some maneuvering on the bed and many IV tubes, we moved across the hall to our room and got settled. Just before moving I talked a nurse (with a Ben Franklin) into calling in the anesthesiologist for a consult on an epidural. The fetinol just wasn't cutting it. Just kidding about the Ben Franklin, as the nurse took one look at me and said "you look like you need something a bit stronger."


6:00PM~My mom got there, very excited and immediately set up shop in our room. She was staying at a hotel nearby but need a second home base to camp out at during labor. Also my new best friend, Brent the anesthesiologist, came in and placed the epidural. It was amazing how it didn't hurt to get placed and how quickly it worked. It took me some time to figure out how the drugs worked because if I laid on one side too long, that side would be useless and completely numb. So, I had to make sure I was laying flat or shifting from side to side.

7:00PM~My dad showed up. I soon realized, as more and more people came, that this was really happening. I was going to have a baby! I got really excited but was completely scared at the same time.


7:30PM~Kate and Bre showed up. This was interesting because the policy is that during labor you are only allowed to have three support people. My three people were Kris, my mom and my sister Kate. The nurses were so great and easy going, as the allowed my dad and Bre to be there as well. We all just sat around for a while, talked and laughed once I lost complete control of my right leg, which ended up feeling like a 50 pound ham hock and falling all over the place thanks to gravity.


8:00PM~The nurse came in to check and I was completely effaced and at about 5 cm, which was a pretty quick change from the 1-2cm ten hours earlier. Also I had gotten a great picture message from Amanda and Casey which consisted of a picture of the two of them with a sign that said in big letters, PUSH!!!!! I quickly called them to thank them, as kindly as I could in drugged up stupor, for the great motivational tool.


10:00PM~Another nurse came in to check my progress and said "huh, unless you have a hidden cervix farther back that I can't find, I think you are fully dilated. Let me get the doctor in here to make sure." Dr. Morishita came in and checked and sure enough I was complete and it was time to push. At that note, my dad high tailed it out of there and Kate and Bre were on his heels, followed by my mom with tears in her eyes. Everyone was really excited. Kris and I looked at each other, both with tears in our eyes. Without saying a word I knew that we were both ready for this and still both scared but we were in this together. It was definitely time to push. Over the next two and a half hours I changed positions, pushed, grunted, breathed, sweat, pushed again, change more positions and worked harder than I ever had in my entire life. It was tough to get the hang of what everyone was telling me to do when it came to pushing because I had never done it before but I gave it my all. At one point Dr. Morishita said "have you been doing kegels because you muscles are so strong which is great but you need to be able to relax those muscles in order to get the baby out." I thought that's ironic that everyone tells you to do kegels to prep for labor and I apparently had done them too well because it was inhibiting me from delivering or so I thought.


11:45PM~At this point all I could think about was how tired I was from pushing, for only an hour and 45 minutes and the fact that Casey had so eloquently reminded me that if I didn't deliver before midnight I would have a Friday the 13th baby. Well that last thought lasted for about two seconds and I was back to pushing. The pain and work of labor was so great, that the fabulous lunch Kris had brought to the hospital earlier came right back. Totally normal I am told but it didn't make labor any easier.


12:20AM~I was getting really tired. Kris was so great and supportive through the entire process, holding my dead leg, rubbing my back, counting while I pushed and really motivating and coaching me. He is the best! I finally got to the point where I needed to just buckle down and do it. So I pushed like no other and POP, out came her head! At this point we realized that the reason I had to work so hard pushing was because the baby was face up. She had been getting stuck on my pelvis, which ended up giving her a nasty bruise on her forehead. Now at this point the epidural had been turned off because it had been so strong that I could not tell when I was having contractions which didn't help the labor progress. So I was doing this au natural!


12:21AM~Push. push, push, push and BAM! Baby was born! They pulled her out, the nurse cut the cord and then rushed her over to the warmer where Dr. Burns the pediatrician and a team of nurses were standing by ready for action. I am not sure how much time elapsed but Kris and I just stared at the warmer, waiting for our little girl to cry but nothing. It was so scary. I don't think I breathed or blinked for what seemed like hours but I am sure it was more like minutes. We both watched as the team went to work with the air bag, rubbing and cleaning our little girl, trying to get her to breathe on her own. I could feel the anxiety building up in me and I squeezed Kris' hand so tight that I was sure I broke his fingers. His arms were around me, still from pushing her out, and we just waited. Then all of a sudden there was a cry that was the most beautiful noise I had ever heard in my life. I said "oh, she sounds like our cat," which she did and everyone in the room laughed. The team continued for a few more minutes to rub her down, clean her up and get her all set. Then they brought her over to Kris and I and we got to hold her. This was without a doubt the best experience in my entire life. Kris and I looked at each other and I thanked him for giving me this wonderful gift. She was absolutely perfect! The two of us just laid there with our daughter, weird to think about, and stared at her in amazement. It was so completely surreal.









12:50AM~I handed our little girl over to Kris while I went back to the work of after birth. Dr. Morishita had asked that I push again to get the placenta out but nothing was happening. Usually they like to get the placenta out within about 30 minutes of the baby being delivered but mine was a no go. The doctor had explained to me that from time to time the placenta can attach to the uterus, called a retained placenta, which makes after birth difficult. She worked manually for some time trying to get the placenta out which was the worst pain I had ever been in in my life. Labor was a breeze compared to the pain of having a placenta scraped out of you. Again the pain was so intense that I got sick to my stomach again, which as before didn't help. After some time of manually working as well as working with some pretty nasty looking tools, Dr. Morishita explained "I can't get the placenta out either manually or with tools. The next step is that we need to take you down to the OR either restart the epidural or give you a general and get the placenta out ASAP. I don't want to hurt you anymore so we really need to get you down there. Also, once we get in there there is a chance that if the placenta is really attached, we may need to do a full hysterectomy. If it comes down to a choice between future fertility and life, I am going to choose life." Kris and I agreed, well Kris really because I had been given a few more shots while the doctor was working on the placenta, and I was prepped for surgery.


1:30AM~The nurses instructed me to "scooch" hips then shoulders from one bed to the other, which was really tough because I was still kind of drugged. All I remember at this point is that one of the nurses wanted to move the ultrasound machine and another kept telling her that the doctor wanted it to go down to surgery with me. This exchange happened about three times and at one point I wanted to scream "leave the damn ultrasound machine because it needs to go down with me to the OR" but I was too tired and drugged to have any kind of coherent conversation with anyone. My family, who had been patiently waiting in a labor waiting area for about an hour, had been given bits and pieces of information about the baby after she had been born and how she needed to be jumped started but that she was doing just fine. Unfortunately, they had not been given any information about my retained placenta situation. All of a sudden my best friend Brent was back and said that we will take good care of her in the OR and off he went to my room to check on me before surgery. All of my family in that waiting room had the same reaction to this news, WTF!!!!!!! At this point they were a little upset to find out haphazardly that I needed surgery and commotion ran a muck. One of the nurses who had been in the room while the doctor worked on the placenta saw this interaction and went over to talk to my family members, because Kris had been in with me and our baby the entire time. She gave them an overview and said the doctor would be out to talk to them in a bit. Dr. Morishita explained everything to them and what was going to happen. At this point Kate and Bre left to head back to Corvallis and my mom and dad were left in the waiting room. Kris was in our room with the baby when the nurses were getting ready to wheel me down to surgery.


2:00AM~Kris handed our little girl off to the nurses so that he could walk as far as the operating room door with me. I was so out of it at this point that all I remember was bright lights, kissing Kris bye and telling him I would be out in a little while. I do remember that he looked so worried but tried to keep a brave face. Then I was wheeled in to the operating room, asked to scooch again on to an even tinier table and then I was out.


4:30AM~The next thing I know I am in recovery as a nurse is placing these massage braces on my legs to keep the circulation going while I recovered. Kris was in our birth suit. My mom headed to the hotel after the doctor came and gave them a good report on the surgery and our baby was in with the nurses, so that Kris could get a bit of sleep. I had to be in recovery for about an hour and I remember one of the nurses coming back to check on me and having those damn massage braces alternate between legs but consistently massaging my legs, which after a while gets pretty annoying.


5:30AM~I was wheeled back into my birth suit, which had been cleaned top to bottom and I guess it was quite the blood bath because Kris told me that at one point there was a nurse hunting down bloody foot prints in the room after the doctor left the room. It was so good to see Kris and there was definitely relief on his face. I had no idea what had happened from scooch on a new bed to being wheeled down to surgery to when I came back from recovery but I would find out later that morning. With everything that had happened, I was overwhelmed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.


8:30AM~Kris is asleep on his pull out bed, our baby is asleep in her bassinet and I am just waking up, feeling like I just got off a 400 mile bike ride and really hung over. My best friend Brent came in and woke me up to give me a report. This is where I found out about how scary and tough of a situation I was in. Once I got down to surgery they gave me a general and I was completely put out. It took Dr. Morishita a while to get the placenta out, even though I was knocked out and not in any pain, that placenta didn't want to come out. I came very close to having a full hysterectomy. Then the placenta finally came out but then the issue became how to stop the bleeding. Brent said "at this point it was touch and go and I said a little prayer." After some time of profusely bleeding, Dr. Morishita was able to control the bleeding but not before Brent had called for a blood transfusion. Normally people have about 14 units of blood in them and I had lost about half of that between the birth, after birth work and once the placenta came out. Dr. Morishita didn't want to have a transfusion done because she didn't like the odds of something going wrong even though the odds are like one in a million. So no transfusion, which is why many of the pictures of me in the weeks following, I look like an extra from one of the Twilight movies. I thanked Brent for everything he did and decided to order some breakfast.


After all is said and done, I am so extremely glad and thankful that we ended up with a healthy baby, healthy mom. It was scary to think back about all I had been through especially finding out about what happened to me after the fact. But having that little girl healthy and happy was all that mattered to me. I would definitely learn over the next few days just how much my life was going to change and with Kris by my side and after going through what we went through over the last 24 hours, I knew we were ready for anything!