The Legion, otherwise known as Keeping the voices at bay....

14:03

The last week has been packed. I actually don't know exactly where to begin.

Saturday, the 11th, about ten minutes after I got up, my water broke. We were a little concerned because I didn't have any pains at all. So we went to the hospital where they admitted me and hooked me up to all the monitors. Keep in mind that my doctor was away for the weekend so I knew I would be having a sub, some lady named Scherbarth.

It was shortly after this that I started getting pain, but apparently not labor-related pains. Scherbarth was concerned because the pains I was having weren't contractions because I wasn't in labor, so she called in another doctor to consult. They came to the conclusion that either I had kidney stones or appendicitis. They decided to give me morphine for the pain so they could monitor the baby. The pains were so bad that I could only sit straight up, I couldn't even lean back. Which of course made the monitors almost useless.

The morphine didn't work at all. All it did was make me sleepy. I was still in massive amounts of pain. And everytime they forced me to lean back or lie down, I threw up. Not great. By this time it was well after lunch [which ended up being flushed down the toilet] and we'd been there since about 10:30am, I'd say 4-5 hours or so and me still not in labor.

So they decided that they'd better induce my labor with pitocin. Course it took them about an hour to decide that. And they were still concerned about the pains I was having so they called the nice man with all the drugs to give me an epidural. The epidural was easy. It hurt a lot to try and stay still since I had to lean forward and everything, but he was gentler than the nurse with the IV needle.

Alicia, the nurse who tried to put the IV of pitocin in, couldn't seem to get the needle to hit my vein. Tried twice in my left hand, no luck. The other nurse ended up putting it in my right hand. My left hand still hurts, after a week, and I've got brusies starting to appear across the knuckles of that hand,

After the epi and the iv, things progressed pretty quickly. They checked me as soon as the epi was working and I was only a finger dilated, and barely that. About half an hour later I was 5-6. I got lucky with the epi. It was working 100%. When my contractions started I could barely feel them, more like a slight pressure. This is where I kind of lost track of time. I know that Junior, Chris and Lisa were all there in the room, but I don't really remember Lisa showing up.

When it got down to the pushing things went very quickly. I wasn't pushing long at all. And it didn't hurt much. [Thanks to the nice man with the drugs.] Meaghan was born at 6:07pm with a full head of dark dark hair. She was 6lbs 5oz and absolutely adorable.

We ended up having to stay in hospital until wednesday because she developed a touch of jaundice and the doctor was concerned. In that time she dropped to 5lbs 8 1/2oz. Mostly due to the fact that we're breastfeeding and my milk is taking awhile to come in. But since we left the hospital she is eating more and seems to have perked up quite a lot. My milk is still not firmly established so we are supplementing with formula and I'm pumping a lot as well still breastfeeding.

I've been a little discouraged with breastfeeding because of a few problems we've been having, but I'm not giving up. I hate that we have to supplement but it's better than her dropping more weight. 12% in 3 days is not exactly good. I can't wait until my milk is more there. She doesn't like the formula. Such a smart baby, she turns her nose up and makes a sour face everytime it comes near her, something she doesn't do if it's EBM or the breast.

I think I'll quit writing while I'm ahead and leave you with some pics of the little princess, Meaghan Neilie.