Sunday, May 2, 2010

Meghan's Arrival!


Thursday, April 29, 2010 was quite a day. Ken and I had just about finished a marathon week at both of our jobs; Ken making sure all of the doctors he worked with were all set to leave for a weeklong conference and me trying to get everything done with the knowledge that our newest little one would be arriving soon. We received some very exciting news that one of my good college friends had at last gotten word (after waiting almost 2 years) that she had received her adoption referral for an infant baby boy. That evening I was talking to my sister Becky on the phone, discussing the events of the day and telling her that even though I thought the baby was on its way a week ago, I felt too good to have a baby in the near future.


When I hung up with Becky, I stood up and sauntered into Camille’s room because it was already 9:30PM, and she still was not asleep. I witnessed Ken trying to coax Camille to close her eyes and in the short walk from our room to Camille’s I realized that my water had broken. I told Ken, “Don’t coax her too much because my water just broke.” My original “plan” was that I was going to attempt a medication-free birth and labor at home as long as possible then go to the hospital when Ken started getting uncomfortable. That plan changed when I realized that I had meconium-stained fluid, making things a bit riskier for the baby if I didn’t make it to the hospital in time.


We decided since Camille was already awake that we would try to bring her to our daycare provider’s house (Janet) to spend the night. Of course, we couldn’t find her anywhere. We had several back-up plans that also fell through. Fortunately one of Ken’s soccer friends, Dante, was available to come over and stay at our house with Camille. Just as Dante arrived, Janet called and said she was home and to bring Camille over. So Dante watched Camille for us while we finished packing our bags, and Camille went to Janet’s house to spend the night.


We arrived at the hospital, still not feeling any contractions at about 11PM. After all the to-do with answering a million questions and getting hooked up to monitors to make sure the baby was okay, we tried to rest and sleep. Ken did okay because I brought ear plugs for him, but I didn’t sleep much. Non-painful contractions would come and go and just as I was about to doze off, the baby in the next room would cry, making me think it was Camille waking up.

By morning (April 30, 2010) nothing had changed and the doctor finally came in to see me and said, “We gave you all night to get things going; now we’ll be doing it my way. My son has a guitar recital at 6PM that I can’t miss. You WILL have a baby by then.” He, of course, was joking, and it was quite funny. They started pitocin around 10 AM and kept turning it up every 15-30 minutes. Just as the contractions were getting quite a bit painful, our nurse decided to take her lunch break. According to her I was taking things well, and she didn’t bother checking to see if I was dilating. About half an hour later, the pain started to get unmanageable, and I told Ken to find a nurse for some pain medication for me. I had warned him in advance that during natural birth asking for drugs was a sign that the baby was coming soon, and he should just stall me for a bit before letting them give me anything. I did hear him tell a nurse (not my nurse, who was still munching on Chinese takeout for lunch) that I didn’t want an epidural, but I wanted something for the pain. She said, “I’ll let your nurse know”. Somehow I managed, with Ken’s help, to amble over to the bed and promptly told him, “the baby is coming right now”. He sensed the urgency and actually yelled into the hallway, “Hey, we could use some help in here!” Thankfully another nurse as well as our doctor happened to be wandering by and managed to come in just in time to catch. It was 12:43PM; just shy of 3 hours of when the pitocin was started. Hooray! I managed to do it all without pain medication. Ken did a great job and is a wonderful person to have in the delivery room (not that he’s volunteering for anyone else).





Meghan Ann was born healthy. She was 6lbs 11oz and 18 inches long. (They told us 19 ¾ inches long in the hospital, but at her 1st doctor's appointment on Monday the most we could stretch out of her was 18 inches.) Amazingly she was born at the exact same gestational age as her big sister Camille: 37 weeks and 6 days.









Proud Daddy!




Camille came to visit the afternoon of Meghan’s birth. When we asked her where the baby was she said, “In Mommy’s tummy” and then tried to look for her under my covers. The video below is of her reaction to actually seeing Baby Meghan. It’s pretty cute. Meghan brought Camille a little gift of a pink sparkly butterfly necklace, which she loves. The nurses also gave Camille a wrist band to match the rest of the family’s that said, “Baby Lamb Big Sister”.

Camille and Meghan's first meeting (Very cute)






Camille's "Big Sister" bracelet



Proud big sister!






Pretty flowers my parents sent us!





We had to stay in the hospital until 24 hours after Meghan’s first feeding so that they could do her metabolic (PKU) screening for genetic disorders. We were able to go home promptly at 2PM on May 1, 2010.




So far Meghan is a good eater and a pretty good sleeper. She has slept all the time except when she wants to eat continuously from 9PM-1AM.


Camille is taking the change well so far. Luckily for her, Meghan has been sleeping all the time so she has actually been getting more attention from Mom & Dad than usual since we’re all taking it easy.

Meghan likes to sun herself under the skylight in our living room.









Finally one with her eyes open!


Below is a picture of Camille as an infant. They're definitely sisters!