Introducing Maya Elise!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post, but it was a rough day and night yesterday. So, first, I'll post her picture and then below, I'll tell about her birth story.



So, around midnight on early Tuesday morning I woke up feeling stronger contractions than I had previously. Finally around 1am I thought I should start timing them. They were about 5 minutes apart. My doctor had told me to go in when they were 5 minutes apart for an hour. Well, I decided to wait a little while longer because of the night before and how they had petered out. Another half hour went by and they were getting closer to 4 minutes apart, so I went ahead and woke up Daron. He was also skeptical, so he just helped me time them and went ahead and put some last minute items in the hospital bag. Finally a little after 3 I tole him that we needed to call someone to come stay with Adan. At this point, the contractions were about 3 minutes apart and quite strong. So, help arrived and we left.

At the hospital we found out I was dilated to 4cm, so we were officially checked in. Everything was progressing along great until I hit 6cm and then the contractions petered out. We continued to walk, sit on a birthing ball, take a whirlpool, etc, and the contractions would increase for a while, but then they would slow down again. And, I was not dilating any further. So finally the doctor made the call to start pitocin. Oh my goodness, that is some horrible stuff. The contractions were on top of each other with very little to no break between. I had been trying to avoid pain meds (I did try phentynol first and it made me throw up), but the pitocin was tough to deal with that I decided to go ahead and get an epidural. That was a nice break from the pain, but it was a very unnerving feeling to not be able to feel a thing from just below the ribcage down. I was absolutely numb. When they would move my legs it was like they belonged to someone else.

Finally at 4:50pm, Maya made her arrival at 8lbs 4oz and 21 3/4 inches. As you can see from the picture she has a ton of dark hair. Daron has dark hair but not quite that dark. I think she takes after her aunts Rhonda and Rolayne (Daron's sisters) in the hair department! She also already has very dark eyes.

Afterward, I had some trouble with excess bleeding. A shot of methergen (sp?) helped, but my hemoglobin has been pretty low and I'm having trouble with dizziness when I try to stand up. I just finally got off an IV of fluids and I will have a catheter in the rest of the day, but I'm feeling better. I still am having some lightheadedness when standing, so they'll be continuing to check my hemoglobin. The plan is to go home tomorrow afternoon unless the hemoglobin and lightheadedness improve.

Adan came to the hospital to meet Maya last night, and a prouder big brother there could not be. He kept telling me, "the baby is big enough to come out!" Yep, she sure was!