For Those Who Are Interested in Knowing...

Here are the events leading up to Janen's birth and all the occurred after. Well, not all. I'll save you some of the details.

I guess I should go back to Feb 5th which is sort of where it all started. I had noticed over the last day and half that Janen was moving significantly less. She hadn't stopped moving altogether, but in comparison to how she was moving before it was enough for me to notice and to worry. I called my doctor's office and the nurse told me to go to the hospital for a Non-Stress Test. I called James in tears because I was afraid that something was wrong with my baby. He ran home from school and we headed to the hospital. The test didn't show that anything was wrong. They had noticed a couple times when the heart rate dropped but it wasn't bad enough to be concerned. So they said to come back on Tuesday after I saw my Doctor that following Monday if I hadn't gone into active labor yet. Monday came (my due date) and of course, Janen was content on staying put. I had not changed at all from the last week and was still at 1.5 cm or almost 2 cm as my dr put it. She told me to still go for the Non-Stress Test the next day just to make sure that the baby was doing fine. Usually the Non-Stress Test aren't scheduled until you are about a week or a little less over due, but because of the scare the week before we wanted to be sure everything was ok.

So Tuesday came and James and I headed to the hospital for the test after he was done with school. We headed over at about 3:15 pm or so. Janen was back to her old self moving around a lot so I wasn't worried. I brought my bag with us just in case, but didn't think that I would actually be admitted the very same day. The Doctor on staff took a look at the test results and had the nurse attending to me call my OBGYN to give her the results. From what I understand, the Doctors were concerned that the baby would be sleeping or very calm and then out of no where go into frantic activity where her heart rate would drop. They were concerned that it was an indicator that she wasn't getting the oxygen supply she needed. It wasn't a critical condition yet, but they didn't want to wait for it to get to that point so it was decided that I would be induced that night.

We were admitted and I got started on the Petocin at 5:10 PM. By about 9:00 PM there was no change in dilation or effacement but the baby moved down to 0 station from -1. Grr! That's not what I wanted to hear. So I got cranked to 20 and we waited another hour. I only dilated another cm to 3 cm. So at 10:15 my doctor came in to break my water in hopes that it would help me to progress faster and boy did it! Well, maybe not as fast as some other people, but pretty good for a first timer like myself. An hour later I asked for the epidural and surprisingly it didn't hurt as much as I was anticipating it to. In fact, it was almost painless, but then again I have a pretty high tolerance for needles. At 3:15 AM I was dilated to 5 cm and then just a short hour later at 4:15 AM I made it to 9 cm and within the hour of that was dilated to the full 10 cm. I waited a little over an hour to start pushing. Started pushing at 6:35 AM and less then an hour and half later at 7:59 AM my beautiful baby girl was born. The hour and half went by a lot faster then I thought it would. Janen was a big baby and I was so surprised that she was. The nurse measured her at 20 1/2 inches, but James and I felt like she was longer then that so when we took her home we measured her and she measures at 22 inches. Now I know my baby didn't just grow an inch and half in a matter of a few days so our hunch was right.

Giving birth actually wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I'm sure some of you disagree because of your own experiences so sorry about that... However, the recovery was more difficult and painful then the actual labor and giving birth. Or I should say is because my body is still recovering. Man, when that nurse pushed down on my uterus after Janen was born to prevent blood clots, I wanted to cry and scream out every time. Now THAT hurt! There are pains associated with birth that I didn't know I could feel. Thank goodness for Percocet and Motrin.

It will be a week tomorrow since Janen has joined our family. I can't believe it! The week has flown by so fast and she is already growing and changing every day. Since day 2 she has been trying to lift up her head to look at us when we lay her on her tummy for tummy time. She is so strong! I love to watch her smile after she has fallen asleep from nursing her. She does it every time without fail. I feel like it's her way of saying, "thanks mommy! that was some good milk!" :-) We are so ecstatic to have her as a part of our family. I can't even imagine what life would be like without her. I'm excited to see her grow, but then at the same time I just want her to stay small forever. She's just so darn cute and I can't stop kissing those beautiful chubby cheeks!



Now if only my stomach could be flat and tone like it was before I got pregnant...

Well, that's probably information overload, but hey, I didn't make you read to the end...you decided that one all by yourself. :-)

Goodnight Neverland!!