Mikayla Emily - Born September 26th at 6:32 AM - 8 lbs 5 oz and 22 inches long
At 1:00 AM on Wednesday morning, Melanie was woken up by her water breaking. She called the doctor's office and the midwife called back as we were getting ready. She had one contraction before we left the house. On the way there the contractions hit hard and fast and were about 4 minutes apart as soon as they started.
We got to the hospital in 20 minutes and signed in and all that junk. We went to a triage room for about 2 minutes while Mel changed into a gown they verified that her water really broke. Of course it did so they put us in a room right away.
The contractions were nearly constant, less than a minute apart the first time they checked. We had to answer all the questions between contractions and I signed the paper since Melanie was a bit pre-occupied. We breathed through contractions until about 5:20 AM when she finally got to 9.75 cm dilated and Laurie told her she could push if she wanted.
She pushed for about 30 minutes when the baby's heart rate dropped a little and then they couldn't get the monitor to read the baby's heart rate instead of Melanie's. They had to put on a fetal monitor which is a last resort for the midwife, she said. They screw a tiny little corkscrew into the scalp of the baby to pick up the heart rate. Melanie pushed a little more but the heart rate was variable and dropping kinda low. The midwife paged one doctor but didn't hear back in time and paged another.
Before the doctors called back they had Melanie roll to her side to push, and the heart rate went up and stayed steady. She pushed for another 20 minutes or so until you could see the baby's hair and top of her head. She had a full head of hair. A few more rough pushes and a little bit of Melanie crying out and the head came out, with the cord wrapped around her neck twice. They hurridly cut the cord and suctioned her mouth and she started crying like a normal baby. The cord was very long according to the nurses, in fact it got caught on one of the nurses and she drug it across the room as she took Mikayla to be checked on.
At 6:32 AM on September 26th 2007 Mikayla Emily Mowery was born. She was 8 lbs 5 oz and 22 inches long.
Melanie was in labor for 5 hours total and pushed for one hour, all with no drugs at all. The midwife and nurses were all very impressed with how well Melanie did. At the time of delivery we had a whole cheering section with 8 nurses cheering "Push! Push!" and telling her how great she was doing. The breathing seemed to help, though Melanie had trouble being able to focus sometimes, and was looking pretty exhausted by the time she was pushing at the end. She pushed so hard she burst blood vessels on her cheeks, it looks like little freckles. Melanie is breastfeeding and Mikayla is latching on and eating well so far. Mikayla's feet were so long they took up more than the entire box for footprints!
Melanie's parents, my parents, and my aunt Regina (who is a nurse and works nights anyway) were there basically the whole time, waiting outside our room. They even had to move to the big waiting room because they were talking and it was night! We had quite a few visitors thoughout the day and enjoyed the looks on everybody's faces and company. We still don't have a consensus on who Mikayla looks like, or what parts of her.
The suite was really nice, we were in the same room the whole time. We stayed in the hospital overnight and went home tonight a little before 6. Little Mikayla didn't like her carseat too much at first. We got home around 6:30 PM and ate dinner and are enjoying being home, relaxing.
Click for more Mikayla pictures!
Thank you to everybody who bought us gifts and especially to Melanie's parents Bob and Emily and my parents for helping us get the house ready for the baby. At least she waited for the wall to be done to come!
Give us a call if you want to stop by the house to see the baby!
