happy birthday baby girl!

So yesterday early morning I gave birth to our baby girl! She's 7 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches long. Pretty long. =) She has long feet and fingers, too. She's got some chocolate-brown hair and her skin seems to be a little paler than Nathan's and Jared's is. So she'll probably be all pasty, like me, haha...

Anyway, so Thursday afternoon I started having contractions pretty close together and they sort of hurt (but not enough to really bother me... just enough to be sort of distracting and I'd have to stop what I was doing for each one). I'd felt that way before so I didn't think much of it until a few hours later when it was still going. Anyway, Jared and I decided to go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that evening and leave Nathan with Shannon. Guess it sort of turned out to be a "last date" in a way =) ... So we went to the movie (and left Nathan's car seat and brought my hospital bag just in case) and it was pretty good! Except that the contractions started getting worse and closer together. I wasn't honestly worried until the end of the movie, though. It was then I started realizing that the baby hadn't moved very much at all in the past 2 or 3 hours. Plus everything was hurting more. So as soon as the movie ended we went to the hospital.

At the hospital they checked me and I was 90% effaced and 4 cm dilated. Their policy was that if you aren't 39 weeks then they don't really admit you until they're sure you're really progressing so they told me they were going to have me wait an hour in the room and see if I dilated anymore. However, after less than an hour (I can't remember exactly how long) they didn't like how her heart rate kept dipping whenever I had a contraction so they decided to actually admit me and give me something to speed up the whole process so they could just get her out. So we did that, and then after another half an hour or so I asked for an epidural. That was nice, obviously... and it didn't slow anything down at all, fortunately. Some time later they came and checked me again and I was 9 centimeters. The baby was still showing the same signs of fetal distress, though. So they got the doctor and everyone into the room (and Jared remembered to ask for a mirror for me! thank goodness) and I started pushing. It didn't take very long. It was so crazy but also very cool to see the baby born. When her head came out the doctor said that the cord was wrapped around her neck a couple of times so he had to cut it straight away. He did that and then he brought the rest of her body out. I was worried that she wasn't making any sound but everyone else seemed very calm. I knew it was probably because everyone had dealt with this kind of thing before but I also felt that they knew it would probably be fine.

So the nurse and another doctor (I didn't even meet him so I have no idea who he was) or nurse started wiping her off and cleaning out her airways but she still wasn't breathing. So for a minute or so they used this bag thing to push air in and then she started coughing and had a little cry. Not long after that she started turning pink like she was supposed to be and they said everything was fine. Her red blood cell count was a little low at first because she'd had her cord cut so abruptly but they didn't have to give her a transfusion or anything.

After that they wrapped her in a blanket and put a funny hat that looked like a sock with the end tied on her head and gave her to me to hold. I was amazed that she already had her eyes open and everything, I hadn't realized newborns were like that. She was already so alert, although I don't think she saw anything very clearly and she still had some fluid around her eyes.
Anyway, we took several pictures but our computer is still not working (the USB ports are being dumb) so I think we'll just have to load a few onto Shannon's computer or something so you guys can see. In the meantime, her blog has some pictures from her phone that you can look at. Although I should mention one thing - she says that the baby has curly hair, but she doesn't, actually. One of the nurses did this weird spiky thing to her hair so parts of it look kind of curly right now. I forgot to tell Shannon that.

So, we haven't named her yet, and everyone keeps asking what we've named her... but that isn't going to make deciding any easier or faster. =) Sorry. Our goal is to name her by the end of tomorrow.

Anyway, we're very excited to have her here, and Nathan's behaved pretty well around her so far. We'll see how things go when we bring her home. She's starting to get the hang of breastfeeding already (somewhat) so that's good, too!

Well, I'm going to try and get a little sleep now. More later!