Happy Birthday, Emma!

Emma Noёl Hancock was born April 3, 2009 at 10:27 AM. Emma weighed 6 lbs, 5 oz and was 20.5 inches at birth.

The first half of our story is already posted. I'll start at 2AM. My contractions were getting intense, and I was hurting from the doctor opening the scar tissue on my cervix. At 4 AM, the doctor came and checked me again, and I had no made any progress. He broke my water and uppped my pitocin. I was in so much pain that I was crying, and I broke down and got the epidural. I was still only at 4cm after 12 hours of contracting and 6 hours or pitocin, so I knew it was going to be a long night, and I couldn't handle the pain in my cervix anymore.

After the epidural was in place, my blood pressure kept crashing. The lowest it got was about 68/34. They had to give me a few shots of epinephrine, but I stabalized after about an hour. I tried taking a nap at that point, but my legs kept twitching and keeping me up. The nurse had me lay on my side to even the epidural out and that helped my legs chill out. At about 7 AM, a nurse came in to check me, and I was still a 4. Emma was also starting to stress out with the contractions, so they had to take me off of the pitocin. I was starting to lose heart at this point. I had to keep switching sides to keep Emma happy, so I was still unable to really rest.

At 8:30 AM, the doctor came on to check me again. This time he brought an internal monitor for me and baby to make sure Emma was okay and to see if my contractions were getting intense enough. He was also going to put some saline back into my uterus to see if that would help Emma drop lower. The doctor checked me first to see if I had dilated any more. I was AT A 9!!!!!!!!! He didn't even need all the reinforcement he had brought. Within half an hour, I was ready to push.

I pushed for an hour, and Emma was born. I would have been able to have her sooner if she wasn't angled. Her head was a bit sideways. It was amazing to hear Paul say, "She's a girl! We have a little girl!" I cried and cried and said I knew it all along. I cried and told her she was such a sill looking baby, because she was so squished and dirty. I was so happy and have never known such love for any one or anything. I told Paul that she is a vital part of my life now. I could never life without her now.

After I had Emma, I had to try to go to the bathroom to make sure my bladder was okay. We noticed I was bleeding pretty bad, but no one was really to concerned about it at the time. I got really dizzy and had to be revived with smelling salts before I passed out. I decided to take a shower to help me feel better. I kept the water just barely warm. I noticed I was still steadily leaking blood, and I even had small gushes from time to time. I got dizzy again, so I turned the water to cold to see if I would help. It did help but only long enough for me to get as far as the toilet. I was still bleeding and I was passing large clots. Long story short, I was losing way too much blood. I was gushing blod out periodically. At one point, I started having horrid contractions and had an urge to push. I called my nurse to say something was coming out of me. She checked me and said it was only blood. I involuntarily pushed and there was a "pop" and blood and blood clots came gushing out. I was pretty sure I was going to die at that point. I got put on several medications to try to get my uterus to contract. It wasn't staying firm enough to stop the bleeding.

I bled quite bad into the evening. The doctor came in to check me for a uterine laceration. Luckily there was nothing torn. He removed some clots and sutured some tears inside (without anesthesia...) to see if he could help to stop my bleeding. Eventually the bleeding slowed down, and my uterus finally figured out how to stay firm enough.

Emma and I are still in the hospital. She is doing VERY well. She is starting to look around and is quite vocal when she is upset. She is eating about every 2 hours and is staying awake longer and longer. I am biased, but I am pretty sure we have the prettiest baby EVER! It looks like she will have auburn hair (which was my prediction!), and she has the cutest nose. She is always chewing on her hands, so she will be a thumb sucker. Since we've been in the hospital, I've been letting her sleep on my chest. She really enjoys skin to skin contact. That is all I have for now. I will update more as things happen. We should be able to go home tomorrow, assuming my bleeding has not started up again. We are all very happy with our sweet, new addidtion.