Tonya and PQBON's WebLog

Our daughter @ 3days

I right this as my three day old daughter sleeps on my chest and Death Cab for Cutie plays on my iTunes. She was born on 1-26-2006. When born she was 7lbs 7oz and 19 1/5". Tonya was in labor for 12 1/2 hours. It was amazing.

We had just settled our heads for anouther night of not having a baby. Tonya was snuggling close to me and we were both about to fall asleep. She lept out of bed and ran into the bathroom. She returned and explained that she had just broken her water. However, she wasn't having real contractions yet so we had time. We both showered and put on clean clothes. We grabbed the few things from inside the house that we needed (we packed the car a few weeks ago) and left for the hospital. The first thing that happened was me getting yelled at for going to slow. Then we called my mother and Kristen and told them to show up at the hospital. At this point Tonya was contracting at 5 to 8 minutes apart. Things were moving really really fast. We got to the hospital and were led to a delivery room. The labor and delivery ward was pretty empty when we got there. That was going to change.

In the room Tonya was checked to find out where things were. She was at a little over 3cm. The contractions were about a 3-5min apart. Our Dr. (Dr. Amy Helmer) was paged so that she knew we were going to have a baby sometime in the next day.

Tonya and I were in the room alone together for a while. Her contractions went down to 1minute apart. At this point her desire for comfort overroad her fear of the epidural and I hit the call buttton to let the nurses know that we wanted an epidural. Once the epidural was administered (it was a little tricky since Tonya was contracting so quickly) the contractions slowed way down. Shortly aftward my mother showed up.

The tree of us relaxed in the room. Tonya tried to nap and so did I. My mom waited in peace. Then Kristen showed up. She and my mom hung out while Tonya tried to nap and I did. I slept for 2hours. Our Dr. showed up just after I woke up, she decided to administer pitocin (the artificial version of oxytocin) to speed up and solidify the contractions. This was about 8am or so and Tonya was 5cm dialated. The contractions slowly started to pickup, however this time the epidural had really really lessened the pain. Tonya could still feel them and her feet and legs but the pain went from a 7 to 2 (he description not mine).

At about 10:20am she was fully dialated and she was feeling the desire to push. A few minutes later the order came to start pushing. We had a wonderful ob nurse help us before our Dr came in. Her name was Katie or Kathryn. We told her we were naming our daughter after her.

Kathryn was delivered in an amazing show of strength by Tonya a few hours later at 12:25pn. It was amazing to watch her come out. Instantly I was in love. She was this perfect little bundle of love. She had dark hair and dark steel blue eyes. Her arms and legs are long and thin. Her feet and fingers are long. I got the cut the cord, which all in all will probably not stick in my mind. It was kind of a secondary distracting task given that I was getting to meet my daughter for the first time.

She is this tiny little prefect being. Her little legs curl up into her body and she likes it that way. She like to suck on her hands and anything else that gets near her mouth. To calm her down in the few times that she gets upset she sucks on a pinky or who ever is holding her and that calms here down.

Shortly after she was born she was taken to the nursery to get her first bath and her vitimin K shot. I went with her while Tonya, who was doing great was taken to the room the two of them would share. I was there for my babies first shot, her first pee, her first poop, and her first bath. It was really special that for the first 4 hours or so I was the only person who was with her at all times.

Thus far, I've been the one to change her. It was a task that I was really really not looking forward to. However, I've changed all but a few of her diapers thus far and I kind of enjoy it. It's something I can do for her that meets a need she has. At this point she has very few needs and since I can't feed her at least I can be the one to change her diapers.

Posted by pqbon at January 29, 2006 10:06 PM