Wednesday, August 29, 2007

What a Difference a Day Makes

Happy Birthday to Emily who is 15 years old today! It definitely doesn't seem that long ago that we were bringing her home from the hospital. Here's what I wrote about Emily's birth 15 years ago.

Emily at birthBorn: 08/29/92 at 07:46am (almost 5 weeks early!)
Length: 19 inches
Weight: 6 lbs 3 ozs

In some ways it happened so fast and in others it seems to have taken forever. When I got up to get ready for work on Friday, August 28th at 5am, I noticed that the bed and my pajamas seemed damp. After I went to the bathroom I realized that I seemed to be leaking fluid. So, instead of going to work, I went back to bed and at 9am I called my doctor who said to go to the hospital. So, I packed a bag (just in case) and took it and my Lamaze bag and drove myself to the hospital ... Paul had gone to work. Because we hadn't gotten around to pre-registering, I did that and then went up to the maternity ward. I was put into a room and examined where it was determined that my water had, in fact, broken. During the exam, the nurse said I was 3 centimeters dialated and 60% effaced. So, I thought, this is it! I was then admitted to the hospital and moved to an LDR room.

Paul joined me around noon and we started waiting. Dr. Reyes wanted to wait and see if I would start to have contractions. Because the baby was still so high, I had to stay in bed the whole time. I was being monitored and after a while I had to lie on my left side. Apparently, the baby's heart rate was best this way. This got pretty boring as the hours dragged on . The worst thing was that I couldn't get out of bed for anything; I even had to use a bedpan. What a pain!!

About 1:00am on Saturday, August 29th, they began inducing labor. This didn't do much until about 6:00am when I first started having any kind of regular contractions. I still didn't really feel these even though the nurse said that most women would have been crawling the walls by then. When the contractions started, it became apparent that the baby's heart rate dropped with every contraction so, by 6:30am I was prepped and ready for a cesarean. There really wasn't time to even think about it.

Now, when I look back I wish I could have experienced the birth, but I'm glad that we didn't endanger the baby. At 7:00am, I was wheeled into an operating room and an epidural was administered. At 7:46am Emily was born. Paul was able to come in and got to watch the whole thing. I didn't get to see Emily until they took her over and started to clean her up and made sure that she was okay. Luckily, she was healthy but a little small (19 inches & 6 lbs 3 ozs). It was hard to believe how perfect she was; I couldn't help but start to cry. Before they took Emily to the nursery, the nurse brought her over to me so that I could see her up close. I wish I could have held her then, but they wanted to check her over some more. Paul was able to go with Emily to the nursery while I was taken to recovery. The whole experience was simply amazing!!

And now 15 years later Emily is 5'4" tall and a self-confident young woman. One thing that Emily really wanted to do this year was to darken her hair since it was no longer really blond but rather a dirty blond / light brown with some outgrown highlights. So, check out the before and after. The before shot was taken yesterday morning, August 28th - can't you tell that she's thrilled to be going back to school and she hated how her hair looked. The after shot was taken this morning, August 29th - a much happier look for sure. What do you think of Emily's new look?
Emily at 15Just before Emily was born a friend of mine was telling me that she was hoping that Emily had dark hair (like me) and blue eyes (like Paul) - well 15 years later Emily does!

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