The Big Arrival

After several picture-heavy posts, we should probably go ahead and tell the tale which we've teased a few times. Lizzie was due to be born on December 6. Operating on the assumption that she wouldn't be too late beyond that date, Emily's mom flew into Michigan on the 6th.

Then, the three and half of us waited for labor too start. And waited. And waited. And played some Wii.


Then we waited. And waited. And went to an exhibit of Dr. Seuss art.



And waited. And waited. And then Emily shoveled snow while 9-plus months pregnant (I helped shovel, of course).



And we waited some more. Before we knew it we had waited for a week. Emily's doctor scheduled us to head to the hospital the evening of Sunday, December 14 to try to kick start the whole labor thing, since Lizzie was taking her time (one of my professors told me to get used to waiting for my daughter to be ready and having to adjust schedules accordingly). Emily's mom was scheduled to fly back to Idaho on Monday the fifteenth, but she started to look into extending her stay by a day or two when it became apparent that Lizzie was not going to make her appearance before Emily's mom would be at the airport.

We got to the hospital at 7pm on the 14th. Cervadil was put in around 8pm. At 1:40 Emily felt a pop and told the nurse she thought her water had broke. Sure it enough it had. The doctor however, informed us Emily was still not dilated at all- not a common thing, apparently. Around 7am, Emily was dilated to 1cm and was started on pitocin to speed the process up. The doctor said she could get the epidural if she chose once she reached 4cm. Emily had said she was open to getting an epidural, but wanted to see how ad the pain was. At 10am, Emily had reached 4 cm and decided that the pain was indeed significant and she would gladly take an epidural. The doctor said they would get anesthesia soon. Emily quickly decided that the hospital's idea of soon was not soon enough. By 11am they had the epidural in and soon after they checked Emily and she was dilated to 7cm. An hour later, at noon, they checked again and Emily was dilated to 10cm. Pushing commenced. Much to Emily's dismay, they took her off the epidural. After 2 hours of pushing Lizzie finally came into the world. She was head down, but her head was posterior (her face was pointing the wrong way). This probably caused the hard and long pushing. All in all the labor went pretty fast and there were no complications, for which we are grateful. However, it wasn't the most pleasant experience of Emily's life or mine, but we are quite pleased with the outcome.

Emily's mom was able to stay until the December 16th, which allowed her many hours with Lizzie, though not as many as she would have liked. My mom flew in on the 14th, and was able to help us out that first week of being parents.