Emily's Arrival - Sharing Melissa's story first

(Warning - these next two posts are lengthy, but have no pictures.  Picture posts are coming soon.)

Emily's arrival didn't happen exactly as I had wanted, but exactly how it needed to be.

First, let me give some background from Melissa's birth, to understand Emily's birth better (and because I didn't have my blog back then and want to document Melissa's birth as well!).

My due date with Melissa arrived and no baby.  I remember we were taking walks every night and trying all sorts of things.  The night before I went into labor, we had dinner at Ninfa's (spicy food) and then went and saw The Dark Knight.  I woke up around 1:30 on August 3rd, but couldn't figure out why I had woken up, so I went back to sleep.  Ten minutes later, I woke up again, and this time felt the contraction.  I woke up Eric and then called my mom.  Still not sure I was in active labor (hey - this was my first baby and I hadn't felt any contractions up until that point, so I didn't know if it was the real deal!), we decided to head up to the hospital to get checked out.  After only having 3-4 contractions that were 10 minutes apart, they quickly shortened to 4-5 minutes apart.  Eric and I hopped in the car and by 2:45 I was admitted to the hospital and was dilated to 5 centimeters.  I opted to get the epidural when I was around 6 ½ and by 7:30ish I was at 10 and ready to go!  So only 6 hours after my first contraction I was ready to push! 

The on-call doctor came in and broke my water and checked me again.  It was then that we discovered Melissa had recently flipped and was breech!  Our conversation went like this: (after she had checked me)  “Um, that’s a butt there.”  I replied “Oh no.  Her butt is up here and her head is down there.”  Dr. checked again and said “Nope – I can feel her butt cheeks.”  So the nurses run out of the room and Eric is looking around like – what’s going on?  I knew it meant a C-section and told Eric.  He went and told everyone in the waiting room and came back to put on the scrubs and mask so he could join me.   I remember when I found out I was having a C-section, the thought that popped into my head was when a friend had mentioned at bunco one night that the ultimate goal is healthy baby and healthy mommy, and if it meant that she had to have her kids by C-section, that was ok by her.  So I was like - OK, let's do this!  I got wheeled down to surgery and was getting the necessary drugs for the surgery.  But there was a problem – they weren’t kicking in.  Apparently, the epidural didn’t take correctly, so when they used the same line for the surgery drugs, they didn’t work the way they were supposed to.  So they had to put me completely out.

The doctor went to tell Eric what was going on since I wouldn’t be able to talk to him myself.  I was so thankful that they ended up letting Eric come into the surgery room even though I was completely out, and that he was able to be there to hold Melissa right away.  Eric was there waiting in recovery for me to wake up, and our sweet daughter was brought in soon afterwards so I could meet her.  

Melissa Ann Wivagg was born on Sunday, August 3rd at 8:26 am and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 20 inches long.

I was disappointed that I missed the whole experience of Melissa being born, and knew that if Eric and I had more children, I wanted to avoid a repeat C-section.  But with a healthy momma, and a healthy, adorable, wonderful little girl, the important things were taken care of.