Melody Christine Main was born last Tuesday November 24th at 7:27 pm and we are so happy to finally have her here! She was a healthy 8 lbs 3 oz, and was 20 inches long. Melody was due November 19th so we chose to have her induced on the morning of the 24th. I had mixed feelings about being induced, but if we had her any later my dad would not have been able to come with my mom to see her. It was ideal timing because he and my little brother had time off for the Thanksgiving holiday and were able to come see us for a few days. We went to the hospital Monday night and the doctor gave me a medicine to make my body "ripe" for induction, whatever that means. I was only dilated to 1.5cm and not effaced, so they did this to make the induction run smoother. David and I spent the night in the hospital and I was having steady mild contractions all night, but nothing that was helping me progress. At 8 that morning they started the pitocin and at 9:45 when I was dilated 3cm the doctor came in and broke my water. After that things really started progressing. With my water broken and the pitocin going strong, I was having contractions every 1 1/2 minutes and they were STRONG. I was soon begging for an epidural and within an hour I was in heaven. There is no better feeling than when the epidural starts working and the computer shows contractions that you have no idea are happening. From there I dilated about 1cm an hour and by 5pm I was at a 10. It's surprising how fast the day went by. Previously when I heard of people being in labor 10+ hours I thought it would be unbearable, but it really went by so quickly. At this point I thought I was in the clear. Everyone I had talked to said pushing was the best part because it's quick and you can barely feel it anyway. Well this is where things got much worse for me. As we started the delivery I started feeling the contractions, but wasn't too concerned because it was helping me push. After about half an hour I was exhausted. The nurse would only let me push for 3 out of 4 contractions to help moderate the baby's heart rate, meaning there was one contraction I had to suffer through, feel everything, and not push even though I was dying to do so. I soon received more epidural because my pushing was becoming ineffective with the pain of the contractions I was fighting. Somewhere around 45 minutes into pushing I started losing touch with reality. I couldn't open my eyes, and was so exhausted I would fall asleep in between pushing. I was so oblivious to the world around me. I kept asking when it would be over but no one could tell me. They could see the tip of her head from the beginning, so after an hour and a half I was feeling hopeless with no sign of progress. My biggest fear going into the hospital was an emergency C-section but I was so out of it I would not have protested at that point. Finally after two hours of pushing, she was born. I didn't feel her come out so when they asked if I wanted to hold her, my response was, I have to deliver her first then yes I would like to hold her. To my surprise they quickly pulled her up and there she was on my chest eyes wide open. It was surreal. David cut the cord and they moved her to clean her up. It was then that my doctor explained why the delivery was so difficult. She came out facing up rather than down, which made it much harder for the forehead to pass the pubic bone. When she was born her forehead had a bump the size of a golf ball. As you can see in the picture below, she was pretty happy to enter the world.
We spent two days in the hospital, including Thanksgiving day. My parents came to the hospital on Thanksgiving and we had a semi-delicious cafeteria Thanksgiving dinner. My mom stayed until the following Tuesday and helped with the cooking, cleaning, and everything else. I am now working on this mom thing by myself and can guarantee that I will not be able to maintain the degree of cleanliness we attained while my mom was here. David has been busy finishing up his first semester at school. Our timing could not have been worse with his school schedule. Five more finals to go, then he has five weeks off for Winter break. I am taking a full 12 weeks maternity leave, so we will have a lot of time together to figure this whole parenting thing out. Melody is doing well, sleeping almost all the time and eating like crazy. She is already back to her birth weight plus some and given her appetite will likely be a chunky baby soon enough. I can't wait. We will keep you all updated with how things are going and hopefully post more pictures. Here are a few we have taken so far.
Melody and Me in the hospital.
Melody's first ride in her carseat. She looks so little in that big carseat.
Melody's favorite place to be is her changing table. We get the best faces when she is chillin on the changing table.
Isn't she so stinkin cute?
