She's Here!

On Monday I started having cramping and lower back pain, so I kept track of what was going on during the day, but nothing was overly consistent. By that night things were starting to get more regular (8-10 mins apart) and so I called labor and delivery. The nurse that answered told me to drink 3 large glasses of water and then lay on my side and see if things subsided. Well they didn't and after an hour my contractions were only 5 minutes apart. So I called back and told them the results of the "test" and they told me to come on in and they would check to see what was going on. Jeff and I left the house at midnight and arrived at labor and delivery sometime just after 1AM on 1/27/09. They hooked me up to monitors and saw that I was contracting about every 3-5 minutes and by 2:45AM my water broke!

I was able to handle the contractions pretty well until 6:30AM when I asked for an epidural. Danica was in the birth canal backwards so her head and spine were rubbing against my spinal cord, causing INTENSE pain. Once the epidural was in place, my contractions started to become less frequent, so they also gave me pitocin to make me contract more. Contractions came back to 2-3 minutes apart. They weren't able to keep checking my cervix to see how it was dialating because I was group B positive and they didn't want to pass anything to the baby.

My parents showed up at around 2:30PM to see us in the birthing room, so we visited for a while and then they were going to go wait in the waiting room. When a new nurse checked on for the day, she decided to check my cervix just to say where things were at...and she said something like "oh my look at this!" Apparently there was an extra layer to the amniotic sac and it was bulging out and just behind that layer was the baby's head! She said this baby is coming a lot sooner than you thought. They quickly paged my doctor and then had me push once to get things going. Since the baby was still head forward, they let her turn around on her own after I pushed once. I waited through one contraction, then the doctor showed up just in time. I pushed twice on the next contraction and she was out! :) There was a little issue with the umbilical cord, it was wrapped around her and her neck, but the doctor was able to quickly resolve the isssue, luckily, since everything happened quickly during delivery! :)

So at 3:40AM our baby girl, Danica Jean Myers was born. She was 7lbs 14oz and 21 inches long. The new Mom and Dad are very proud of their little girl. Grandma and Grandpa Ide were able to see her almost immediatlely, when Jeff brought her to the nursery to get cleaned up, weighed and measured. It was a great day and we are still enjoying her very much.

Right now we are still in the hospital and plan on going home tomorrow. Grandma and Grandpa Myers are here right now to see the new addition to the family.

I'll post some pictures now...