Isn't she sweet?
Annabelle under the bili-lights (for her jaundice)
Such small hands!
Beautiful baby girl with her boW
First picture of the new family
Annabelle with Mommy
Monday, January 12, 2009
Baby Pictures
Annabelle Marie Mainz just moments after birth
Isn't she sweet?
Annabelle under the bili-lights (for her jaundice)
Such small hands!
Beautiful baby girl with her boW
First picture of the new family
Annabelle with Mommy
Isn't she sweet?
Annabelle under the bili-lights (for her jaundice)
Such small hands!
Beautiful baby girl with her boW
First picture of the new family
Annabelle with Mommy
Annabelle Marie's birth story
On January 6, 2009 at 3:54 pm, I gave birth to the most perfect baby girl. We had gone to the hospital because I was having some contractions coupled with bleeding. While I was in the hospital being monitored, my water broke at around 10pm. When they admitted me I still wasn't really dilated or effaced. The nurse said I was at "a one with a wiggle" and only about 20% effaced. Since my water had broken and I was Group Strep B positive, they had to admit me and make sure that I was given antibiotics. At this point, my contractions were still very irregular, anywhere from a couple minutes apart to 10 minutes.
After I got moved into my room, I sat and read my book - Eclipse (book 3 from the Twilight Saga) and just breathed through the contractions. Things went pretty well for a few hours but then the contractions started getting stronger. Corey says that it was about 4 when I got started on the fentanyl. I was able to get some sleep then, but only for about half an hour. Then the drug started to wear off and the contractions broke through. I had to wake Corey up so he could help me breath through the contractions again. We had to make it a full hour before I could get another dose of the fentanyl. Labor still wasn't too bad except when I went to the bathroom. There I would get really cold, which would make me shiver. My contractions would soon turn the shivers to uncontrolable shaking as the contractions got worse and worse. And of course, the tension in my muscles made the contractions seem worse when I was cold. I always had to wait through at least 3 contractions every time I went to the bathroom. After my hour was up, I got another dose of the fentanyl and got about half an hour of sleep. Again, after about half an hour it wore off, and while I was in the bathroom the contractions just got so strong I couldn't really take it anymore and they were coming about 3 or 4 minutes apart. At this point I started demanding/begging for something stronger. I was told that there wasn't anything stronger except for an epidural, so at about 6 am I got an epidural. At this point I was dilated to a 3 and probably only 50% effaced. However, my cervix was really moving down low and the baby's head was right on top of the cervix, so they knew I was still progressing nicely. Right from the point when they gave me fentanyl they also started me on pitocin to keep me progressing. And of course always turning it up every hour or so - hence the increasingly painful contractions.
After the epidural, I was finally able to get some sleep. After sleeping for a few hours I woke up because I had some bad pain in my right hip. I asked the nurse about it, thinking my epi wasn't working very well anymore only to be told that there was nothing they could do about it. The nurse said it was due to the baby moving down, putting pressure on something that was causing me pain. I turns out she was in a posterior position, which is why I was mostly in back labor when I could feel my contractions and why I was in so much pain even through the epidural. As labor continued, the pain my hip got worse.
We kept turning me, trying to find something to ease the pain. We were able to get rid of the pain by putting me completely on my right side, but then I could feel the epidural shifting so that my entire left side was getting feeling back. I knew that would be dangerous, so we shifted me back, trying to find something that would ease the pain. Nothing really worked, and the pain was just intolerable. At the time I described it as "searing, white hot pain," and it was just about blinding with how badly it hurt. Finally, they called the anesthesiologist back to my room and he gave me fentanyl on top of the epidural and that finally numbed the pain. Since he put it directly into my epidural drip it was able to provide constant relief instead of needing to be kicked up every hour. Once that kicked in, I felt great. I was finally able to get a couple hours of sleep, as was Corey. He was finally able to stop worrying about me and no longer needed to coach me through the pain (or let me crush his arm) while keeping me breathing. Sometime later, Corey's mom showed up at the hospital. She took Corey to get some food while I slept, and then when I woke up she helped take care of me.
After chatting with Sue for awhile, my mom also showed up. I had been checked around noon and was dilated at an 8 with the baby's head really far down the birth canal. The soon-to-be-grandmas, Corey, and I visited for awhile and at close to 3:00 our nurse Lina was about to end her shift. She didn't want to check me until my next nurse came on, but she was also dying of curiosity to see where I was at especially since it had been a couple hours since I had been checked and my contractions were right on top of one another. She couldn't take the curiosity any longer and checked me at right about 3:00. Well, big surprise but I was now fully dilated and the baby's head was right at the end of the birth canal. Lina had me do some practice pushes and I was ready.
It was the end of Lina's shift though, so she had to leave. The next nurse, Chelsea, was great too though. Originally I hadn't wanted anyone but Corey in the delivery room with me, but at the last minute I decided to let both grandmas stay and watch the birth. They were both extremely helpful too. Corey handled the whole thing way better than I ever expected, with almost no issues with the whole delivery. The nurse paged the doctor and had me start pushing - they actually seemed to be a bit concerned that my doctor wouldn't make it in time. Not counting the 3 practice pushes I did, it took a total of 5 pushing sessions (about 20-30 minutes total) to get her out. I actually almost coughed and laughed her out, it was really easy and I felt nothing. We had to be careful though because she had swallowed some of the miconeum - the baby had pooped in utero during the labor. They suctioned out as much as they could, but they ended up having to take her to the level 2 nursery to monitor her and put her on oxygen.
I had to wait for my epidural to wear off before I could go join her and those 2 hours were agonizing since everyone else had been back to see her except for me. Corey would send back periodic updates, but I was very worried about her even as she was getting better. I wanted nothing more than to be with my baby. I had only gotten about two minutes with her at this point - a few seconds right after she was born before they took her to look at her and another minute before they took her away to the nursery to take care of her. When I joined her she was at 25% oxygen and had stalled there for awhile. As soon as I was there it took only a little while to get her down to room level oxygen. She had stabilized, but she needed to stay in the nursery until some blood work came back to clear her to go upstairs with me.
Finally, the blood work came back and she was cleared to "graduate." She was great for the rest of that day - though I had some issues with breastfeeding. My nipples just weren't up to the task and I didn't know how to get her to latch properly, so they got cracked and bruised and bled a bit. She does a great job of latching on, but if she's not on straight we can have problems. Then at about day 2 Annabelle started to get jaundiced and had to go under the bili-lights. Because of the jaundice we had to stay in the hospital an extra day. While she was under there we had a really hard time with her. She started to get dehydrated, and my nipples weren't holding up to her demands. Also, my milk hadn't come in yet and the colostrum wasn't enough for her - so we ended up supplementing with formula through a syringe. We did this for about a day and it ended up interfering with our progress with breastfeeding. Long story short, we had to be tough and cut her off from the formula when we got home. It took a couple feedings before she started getting the hang of things again, but now she's doing much better.
After I got moved into my room, I sat and read my book - Eclipse (book 3 from the Twilight Saga) and just breathed through the contractions. Things went pretty well for a few hours but then the contractions started getting stronger. Corey says that it was about 4 when I got started on the fentanyl. I was able to get some sleep then, but only for about half an hour. Then the drug started to wear off and the contractions broke through. I had to wake Corey up so he could help me breath through the contractions again. We had to make it a full hour before I could get another dose of the fentanyl. Labor still wasn't too bad except when I went to the bathroom. There I would get really cold, which would make me shiver. My contractions would soon turn the shivers to uncontrolable shaking as the contractions got worse and worse. And of course, the tension in my muscles made the contractions seem worse when I was cold. I always had to wait through at least 3 contractions every time I went to the bathroom. After my hour was up, I got another dose of the fentanyl and got about half an hour of sleep. Again, after about half an hour it wore off, and while I was in the bathroom the contractions just got so strong I couldn't really take it anymore and they were coming about 3 or 4 minutes apart. At this point I started demanding/begging for something stronger. I was told that there wasn't anything stronger except for an epidural, so at about 6 am I got an epidural. At this point I was dilated to a 3 and probably only 50% effaced. However, my cervix was really moving down low and the baby's head was right on top of the cervix, so they knew I was still progressing nicely. Right from the point when they gave me fentanyl they also started me on pitocin to keep me progressing. And of course always turning it up every hour or so - hence the increasingly painful contractions.
After the epidural, I was finally able to get some sleep. After sleeping for a few hours I woke up because I had some bad pain in my right hip. I asked the nurse about it, thinking my epi wasn't working very well anymore only to be told that there was nothing they could do about it. The nurse said it was due to the baby moving down, putting pressure on something that was causing me pain. I turns out she was in a posterior position, which is why I was mostly in back labor when I could feel my contractions and why I was in so much pain even through the epidural. As labor continued, the pain my hip got worse.
We kept turning me, trying to find something to ease the pain. We were able to get rid of the pain by putting me completely on my right side, but then I could feel the epidural shifting so that my entire left side was getting feeling back. I knew that would be dangerous, so we shifted me back, trying to find something that would ease the pain. Nothing really worked, and the pain was just intolerable. At the time I described it as "searing, white hot pain," and it was just about blinding with how badly it hurt. Finally, they called the anesthesiologist back to my room and he gave me fentanyl on top of the epidural and that finally numbed the pain. Since he put it directly into my epidural drip it was able to provide constant relief instead of needing to be kicked up every hour. Once that kicked in, I felt great. I was finally able to get a couple hours of sleep, as was Corey. He was finally able to stop worrying about me and no longer needed to coach me through the pain (or let me crush his arm) while keeping me breathing. Sometime later, Corey's mom showed up at the hospital. She took Corey to get some food while I slept, and then when I woke up she helped take care of me.
After chatting with Sue for awhile, my mom also showed up. I had been checked around noon and was dilated at an 8 with the baby's head really far down the birth canal. The soon-to-be-grandmas, Corey, and I visited for awhile and at close to 3:00 our nurse Lina was about to end her shift. She didn't want to check me until my next nurse came on, but she was also dying of curiosity to see where I was at especially since it had been a couple hours since I had been checked and my contractions were right on top of one another. She couldn't take the curiosity any longer and checked me at right about 3:00. Well, big surprise but I was now fully dilated and the baby's head was right at the end of the birth canal. Lina had me do some practice pushes and I was ready.
It was the end of Lina's shift though, so she had to leave. The next nurse, Chelsea, was great too though. Originally I hadn't wanted anyone but Corey in the delivery room with me, but at the last minute I decided to let both grandmas stay and watch the birth. They were both extremely helpful too. Corey handled the whole thing way better than I ever expected, with almost no issues with the whole delivery. The nurse paged the doctor and had me start pushing - they actually seemed to be a bit concerned that my doctor wouldn't make it in time. Not counting the 3 practice pushes I did, it took a total of 5 pushing sessions (about 20-30 minutes total) to get her out. I actually almost coughed and laughed her out, it was really easy and I felt nothing. We had to be careful though because she had swallowed some of the miconeum - the baby had pooped in utero during the labor. They suctioned out as much as they could, but they ended up having to take her to the level 2 nursery to monitor her and put her on oxygen.
I had to wait for my epidural to wear off before I could go join her and those 2 hours were agonizing since everyone else had been back to see her except for me. Corey would send back periodic updates, but I was very worried about her even as she was getting better. I wanted nothing more than to be with my baby. I had only gotten about two minutes with her at this point - a few seconds right after she was born before they took her to look at her and another minute before they took her away to the nursery to take care of her. When I joined her she was at 25% oxygen and had stalled there for awhile. As soon as I was there it took only a little while to get her down to room level oxygen. She had stabilized, but she needed to stay in the nursery until some blood work came back to clear her to go upstairs with me.
Finally, the blood work came back and she was cleared to "graduate." She was great for the rest of that day - though I had some issues with breastfeeding. My nipples just weren't up to the task and I didn't know how to get her to latch properly, so they got cracked and bruised and bled a bit. She does a great job of latching on, but if she's not on straight we can have problems. Then at about day 2 Annabelle started to get jaundiced and had to go under the bili-lights. Because of the jaundice we had to stay in the hospital an extra day. While she was under there we had a really hard time with her. She started to get dehydrated, and my nipples weren't holding up to her demands. Also, my milk hadn't come in yet and the colostrum wasn't enough for her - so we ended up supplementing with formula through a syringe. We did this for about a day and it ended up interfering with our progress with breastfeeding. Long story short, we had to be tough and cut her off from the formula when we got home. It took a couple feedings before she started getting the hang of things again, but now she's doing much better.
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