Baby Girl

It all started Friday evening, November 5th. We were at home and Michael's parents had come into town. I started having contractions while making dinner, and by the kids bedtime they were four minutes apart. I had 4 minute apart contractions for about 5 hours and made Michael stay up with me until 1am trying to decide whether to go to the hospital or not. We just needed the contractions to either get painful or get one minute closer together... but to no avail. So, we went to bed. I had contractions all night long, but by morning they had slowed to about 10 minutes apart, then they got sporadic.

Saturday morning we took the kids to the park. To prove that I really was trying to have this baby, here is a picture of me on the tire swing at 39 weeks 2 days pregnant.

After the park we headed home again so the men (Michael, his dad and my dad) could watch the Utah/TCU football game... which ended up not being on any channels that we have, so they watched other games instead. Michael's mom and I took the kids to the neighborhood park so they could show off their bike riding skills and enjoy the gorgeous day. Meanwhile, I started timing contractions again at 6 minutes apart. Then they jumped to 2 minutes, and after about an hour of that they started to get uncomfortable. I went inside and told Michael I thought it was time to go... he said "How close?" and I held up two fingers. We hugged the kids goodbye and were out the door.

It took 45 minutes to get to the hospital (we left at 4pm on Saturday and hit EVERY red light across the valley). We checked in to the hospital and of course had to be monitored for an hour before being able to really get started. I was dilated to 2 cm's (after all those contractions are you kidding me???), and after an hour was at 3 cm's so the nurse called the doctor and made it official that we weren't being sent home again.

At 7pm I was started on an IV of penicillin. I had to have the first dose for 4 hours before they could do anything to augment the labor, so we just hung out walking around the room and sitting on a labor ball until about 10:30 when they checked me again and I was at 3 cm's. WHAT??? The contractions were slowing again to 5-6 minutes. Grr. The options were to either have my Dr come and break the water, and then probably still need pitocin, or to get pitocin and see if we could get the labor going again. I opted for an epidural and pitocin and my doctor said she would rather wait until I was dilated to a 5 before breaking water.

I got an epidural at 11pm and started on the pit at the same time. The hope was that the pit would be able to do it's job and we would be able to get some sleep. Everyone thought the baby would be born in the wee hours of the morning (like 2am so we wouldn't know if it was 2 or 1 since it was fall back.) Unfortunately the plan didn't work out so well.... I had to be checked every half hour until we got to the right levels of pitocin, then the baby started having her heartrate drop with every contraction so I had to have oxygen and be turned from side to side about every half hour. Then I over-reacted to the pitocin and it had to be decreased and I had to be monitored every fifteen minutes and my blood pressure went way low (90/50).... long story short there was someone in the room every 10-15 minutes all night long, and at 4 (really 5am because of the time change) in the morning I was only dilated to 4 cm's. Thank heavens for the epidural that made me comfortable but still able to feel every kick and roll of the baby.

Here I am looking all kinds of pathetic around 1am, hooked up to 2 monitors, 3 IV drips, an epidural drip, catheter, blood pressure cuff and oxygen. This is how I was from then through delivery.

FINALLY around 5am my contractions got to be regularly spaced at 1.5 minutes apart and started actually working. At 6am I was at 5 cm's and 70% effaced so the nurse called my doctor to ask her to come in and break my water. She said to grab any doctor on the floor or wait until she could come in at 7am. Luckily there was one other patient in the hospital whose doctor happened to come in at 6 to check on her. My nurse grabbed him and brought him in at 6:30. He checked me and I was at 6cm and 90% effaced (see, the contractions really were working now!) He broke my water and left. The nurses went through a shift change but told me to call them if I felt like I was ready.

My mom called in a panic at 7:00 "Why didn't I get a call that you had the baby at 3am???" I said "Because there's no baby yet, but hopefully soon!"

At 7:15am I was about to call the nurse in when she came in to check me again. I was at 10cm and 100%, ready to have the baby! One problem.... no doctors in the house! My doctor rushed over to the hospital and arrived at 7:45. Ten minutes later she was suited up and ready, and our beautiful baby girl was born at exactly 8:00am on November 7, 2010. (18 total hours of real labor, 15 hours of that was in the hospital)

The doctor placed her on my stomach while the nurse cleaned her up-- it was so amazing to see her for the first time. Her cute little face, perfect fingers and toes, her little ears that she got from me, the lips just like EmmaRay's, nose just like Brennan's, and cute little wrinkles in her forehead. The doctor offered Michael scissors and huge surprise to me, he actually took them and cut the cord.

Our baby girl just a minute after being born! She had a cone-shaped head, poor little thing, but it went away within a few hours of her birth. Her Apgar score was 9/9. Pretty much perfect!

They put the baby on the scale and Michael said "Whoa! She's 8 pounds!!"

I said "What? How could I have an 8 pound baby? She definitely overcooked!" The doctor said "Yes, by what we were thinking, she's two weeks overdone!" Her official birth weight is 8 lbs 1 oz, almost a pound bigger than any other of our kids! She is 20 inches long.

The awful part is almost done baby, then your mommy and daddy can hold you!

I finally get to hold my baby again! Ok, this is only about 5 minutes after she was born. I still have teary eyes that I can barely open because let's face it, delivering a child is like no other experience on the planet and I always get emotional. Best feeling ever!

Proud Daddy! He already ADORES his little girl!

My mom was the first visitor-- she was about to go over and help Michael's parents get the kids ready for church when we called and said we finally had the baby. So, she swung by the hospital to meet her 15th grandbaby and hold her for a little while. The baby is only an hour and a half old at this point, and her name had not been decided yet.

We moved into a nicer room a little while after that, and once I was situated it was bath time for the baby!

Nice clean baby who smells SO deliciously sweet! And a mommy who is feeling a little more human although my legs stayed numb for 6 hours after the epidural was taken out.

At this point Michael and I sat together and went through all the names we've been discussing again. And we decided. Our baby girl is:

Adelynn Joanne Rigby

Possible nicknames are Adi, Lynn, or AJ. We chose Joanne for her middle name for 3 reasons-- my grandmother's name is Joanna, Michael's mom's name is Ann, and my mom's middle name is Ann. So we combined them all into one.Isn't she beautiful?We couldn't see her eyelashes yesterday because her little eyes were swollen from the eyedrops, but today she has the sweetest little eyelashes.

More pictures to come!

Adelynn Joanne Rigby
Born November 7, 2010
8:00 am
8 lbs 1 oz
20 inches long
14 inch head