Lucy's entry into the world

Hi everyone--it's new mama here. I've told this story so many times in the last few days, I thought I'd put the highlights up on the blog. It's strange to look now at our "news flash" entry and to realize that was less than 4 days ago. At that point, we had NO idea what was ahead of us. You can read books, take classes, make a birth plan...and then it ends up being an event completely out of your control.

All told, labor was good. Nathan was the most supportive and helpful husband I can imagine, and I was happy that my swearing was not directed at him! While I admit to some questioning of the decision to do this naturally during a few of the more intense moments, I coped and things moved along fairly quickly with help from Nathan and the excellent support from Anita the nurse-midwife and 2 outstanding labor and delivery nurses.

Delivery was a bit of a different story. As time went on, Lucy's heart rate was dipping and she still just wouldn't come on out despite our best efforts. Anita called for OB backup and things got more urgent. As the room errupted into a flurry of activity, Nathan was really scared but focused on keeping me calm. While foreceps sounded horrible when we took the childbirth ed class, in the moment I was just glad they weren't telling us they needed to do a C-section. The serene and joyful birth scene we imagined with immediate family bonding was replaced by medical personnel we didn't know snatching Lucy out and then rushing her off to another room. A screaming baby has never sounded so good! After making sure I was okay, Nathan went with Lucy while they poked and prodded her for 20 minutes or so.

The vitals--she was 20 3/4 inches, and as you can see from the weight on the scale, 7 lbs, 13 oz.


Finally, after determing that she was okay but just needed to bring her body temperature up, they wrapped her up (we call it her Taliban baby look) and gave her to Nathan to bring in to show me. They were still working on me, so he was the only parent to hold her for her first 1/2 hour of life. Her time of birth was 1:59am, and finally after about an hour Grandma Sue and Grandpa Al were allowed to come in and meet their first grandbaby. Quiet bonding time for Lucy and Nathan and I finally happened around 4am. It's amazing how adrenaline can kick in and wake you up when needed!



Even though things didn't go as planned, and Lucy was a little more traumatized by birth than some babies, we are immensely relieved and grateful. From our efforts of the past few weeks to jump start labor to her final moments, Lucy Anne S**-M** showed her determination to remain in utero. We hope this strong will and single-minded sense of purpose will serve her well over the years.