Isn’t she precious?  Mark and I are both completely in love with her.

Her birth, unfortunately, did not go to plan…at all.  Here’s how it went:

Mark and I went into the hospital at 7pm on Monday, June 16th.  The doctor was going to give me Cytotec (no idea if that’s spelled right) to ripen my cervix prior to the induction Tuesday morning.  Cytotec is a tiny pill they put in the cervix to help it soften before labor is induced with pitocin.  It wasn’t meant to put me in labor.  So, the doctor came in and administered the Cytotec around 8:00, but 9:00 I was having some contractions, nothing major.  They had me hooked up to an external fetal monitor to track Anna’s heartrate as well as a monitor to keep track of my contractions.  When we got to the hospital the nurse started an IV.  I’d never had an IV before and it really didn’t go well.  I more or less passed out during that procedure!  They started me on IV fluids which made me have to pee every hour on the hour.  So, I had to call the nurse, every hour on the hour to unhook so I could get to the bathroom.  By midnight I was in some pain.  My contractions felt like they were one on top of the other, but I think they were probably about a minute apart.  I had the nurse check my progress.  My cervix was thinning, but I had not dilated any further.  The nurse left and I cried for awhile…I was in a lot of pain and I wasn’t making as much progress as I felt I should’ve made.  I couldn’t sleep.  The nurse came in and gave me a small dose of Demerol to help me sleep.  This did relax me for an hour or 2, but I wasn’t able to sleep.  The contractions continued to get stronger.  At 5:30 they pitocin through my IV.  At this point I was 60% effaced and about 3 cm dilated.  I was already thinking about an epidural.  The pitocin regulated my contractions somewhat, but I had a lot of double and triple contractions where they would come one after the other with no space in between.  Eventually it felt like they were all one on top of the other.  Sometime just before lunch, the doctor came in to check me and started my epidural.  They made Mark leave the room for that which really didn’t make me happy, but at that point I would’ve done just about anything to get the epidural.  The epidural was nice and it allowed me to rest for a little while.  Then I started feeling the contractions again and they were STRONG.  The nurse thought the epidural pump had stopped working, so she brought in a different one.  It didn’t work either.  The doctor manually injected a booster dose into my epidural line, but it didn’t work either.  They decided the line had a kink in it somewhere, but it was too late to do another epidural.  I was at 7cm…the beginning of active labor.  I somehow made it from lunchtime to 3ish writhing around in pain.  Mark would try to rub my back, but I’d make him stop…every little touch was irritating.  I was extremely tired and hungry and in pain.  I was sooo ready to be done.  I started to feel like I needed to push, so I told the nurse.  She checked me…I was almost at 10cm…just a little bit of a cervical “lip” left.  She decided she could help me along by pushing this lip back out of the way as I pushed.  So we did that, but Anna wasn’t descending properly.  The nurse made me put on an oxygen mask…this further irritated me.  I was hot and the mask made it hard to breathe.  I kept pushing it off, they kept putting it back on.  Mark later told me he could see Anna’s heartrate dip everytime I pushed.  They didn’t tell me that at the time.  The doctor got there around 3:30…I had already been pushing some.  After a few pushes they decided to try the vacuum extractor.  So they got everything set to do that.  The doctor tried for a few minutes to get the vacuum cup on Anna’s head, but she was face up and twisted to the side.  He couldn’t get the cup positioned where he could turn her around, so he decided she was not going to be born vaginally.  At this point people were running around like crazy.  I caught a glimpse of the delivery room and noticed it was a mess…there was a lot of blood!  They prepped me for a c-section.  I was in so much pain and so exhausted that it’s all kind of a blur, but I knew there was some urgency to it.  They took Mark away to get him dressed for the operating room.  They took me into the OR to remove the epidural and give me a spinal (saddle-block) for surgery.  I had to wait a few minutes for a different doctor to get there before the anestheisiologist would do the spinal.  In the meantime, I’m still having contractions.  The doctor got there (thankfully the one I like!) and they did the spinal, which thankfully worked!  They put up the sheet in front of me and brought Mark in.  I didn’t even know they had started the procedure when I started to feel some tugging.  The doctor later told me as soon as she had cut me open, Anna reached her little hands out!  The doctor had to poke her hands back in so she could get her head out first!  I heard some weak little cries and one of the nurses commented that she was crying before she was even out.  Once they pulled her out she let out a bigger cry, which of course made me cry. 

Anna Christine Masco was born at 4:06pm on Tuesday, June 17, 2008.  She weighed 6lbs, 12 oz and was 20 inches long. 

They cleaned her up and briefly brought her over to where I could see her and took a couple pictures of the 3 of us.  Then they wisked Anna and Mark off and injected some pain medication into my IV while they finished the surgery.  The next thing I knew I was in my room with the recovery nurse.  I still couldn’t feel my legs (from the spinal).  By the end of my hour in recovery (neither Mark nor the baby was allowed in) I was just starting to be able to feel my legs.  When my recovery time was over, one of the nurses brought in a big flower arrangement and told me that Mark had gone home to take a shower, but he had asked that they give me the flowers and tell me that he loved me and he’d be back soon.  Awwww…Mark got back soon after that and wheeled Anna in the room with us.  I finally got to hold her and look at her.  That made it all worth it.  She’s so tiny and beautiful and perfect.  We didn’t keep her in the room with us that first night.  I still couldn’t get out of bed and we were both very exhausted. 

I woke up Wednesday morning and I wanted her in the room RIGHT THEN!!  It was almost a panicky feeling that she wasn’t in my belly and she wasn’t in the room.  Mark went and got her and I was able to nurse.  Soon after breakfast (I was finally able to eat!!) they took out my catheter and unhooked my IV.  I hobbled out of bed.  Ouch!  Mark helped me take a shower, which was WONDERFUL after such a long time without one.  I’m still extremely sore and I have a hard time getting up and down.  Mark’s been great.  When Anna cries he goes and gets her since I can’t get up quickly.  He’s an old pro at changing diapers already.  He had to change her very first diapers because I couldn’t get out of bed due to the spinal. 

Today is our first full day home, and so far, we’re doing ok.  I’m glad to be home…with our baby.  And now, I’ve got to wrap this up.  It’s time for a feeding…There are more pics on my Flickr page and I’ll add more as we take them!