Meet Nora.

Meet Nora.

We LOVE her. We ADORE her. We think she is THE cutest, sweetest little girl and she has some tough competition in our families. =) This precious girl FINALLY joined our family April 2, 2010 at 12:16pm. She weighed 7 lbs 15 oz (THANKGOODNESS no more!) and was 19 inches long. (For the record, Aaron thinks she was really 19.5 but that the nurse didn't really pay attention.)

We think she is really good because she was born on GOOD FRIDAY.

Now for how it all went down...

Labor. It seemed like it was never going to come. I'd get some contractions and they'd seem pretty consistent then they'd stop. We had several days that we just knew we were going to be heading to the hospital and never did. Every time we went to the doctor's appointments I'd be a little further along but not much. 2 cm. 3 cm. The doctor assured us we'd be having her real soon. Nothing.

Maternity Leave. I had been on maternity leave for 2 weeks before anything happened! Didn't this girl know I was wasting precious mommy/daughter time while she continued cooking?? =) Now that she's here, I see why she didn't come. She's always relaxed, laid back, and sleeping!! I don't think this girl will have a hurry bone in her body! Well, maybe...ask me again in a few months.

Contractions. Eventually contractions came all night long Thursday (April 1st)/Friday morning (April 2nd). I didn't know if they were real or not (how am I supposed to know?!?!). All I knew was that it was starting to hurt and they were staying pretty consistently apart. I got up, shower, got ready, and waited until 8am to call the doctor's office. Turns out it was Good Friday and the doctor's office was closed so I had to call the nurses "hotline" anyways. I called and talked to the nurse for a while. I told her all my ailments and symptoms. She basically told me just to stay home and wait and see until I finally got her to understand how much it was starting to hurt. Then she told me to head on into the hospital to get checked out just in case. We finished packing up our hospital bag and then went.

Triage. We checked in at the hospital and the nurse had already called to tell them we were on our way. They put us in one of the triage rooms where we met our nurse, Ashley. They gave me a beautiful pink gown to change into and hooked me up to a couple of monitors. One for her heart rate and one for my contractions. Don't ask me what they showed other than a bunch of lines. =) The doctor that was on call was not my normal OB/GYN doctor. It was Dr. Goldman. He wasn't the friendliest doctor. In fact, at one point I was in tears when he frankly asked me how did I know/not know if I was having contractions. I tried to answer but just started crying because I didn't know...that's why I was there!! All I knew was that the pain was starting to get worse the longer they made me lay still and uncomfortably! Every time the doctor came in he'd just stare at the monitors. He didn't tell us what he was thinking or really talk to us much...eventually we found out why. Nora's heart rate was high--around 178 and holding. A typical baby's heart rate is between 130 and 160 so he was concerned. He gave me some fluids to see if that helped. It didn't. (Oh and don't get me started on the IV attempts that failed miserably to get that bag of fluids in me.) The doctor knew something wasn't right. There was also speculation that my water may be leaking, so he decided to break it--that's when he saw all the meconium and we were moved into a room.

Room 10. Lucky us, the rooms were all full (it was only 11 something by now and people hadn't been all discharged yet). They had to put us in Room 10 which was a definitely last resort. It was right by the front door. We got in there and all hooked up. More of the same except now I was in extreme pain. I even pinched Aaron because I was hurting, most of the time he was too far away though. We all just waited and watched the monitor waiting for her heart rate to come down. The doctor came in and out in and out. The nurse decided to order me and epidural. The doctor came back in and said no epidural and told us he felt we needed to have a c-section because Nora was in distress with such a high heart rate. They ordered Aaron some scrubs and then we watched her heart rate start going down, down, down. It was VERY scary. I was in pain and not really coherent but did see that number go down to 40 and heard the nurse calling out for help. I watched help come from all areas and things get unplugged and me pushed down the hall (with my sheet only half covering me) to the OR.

The OR. I remember getting up and laying on a different bed. I remember the lady telling me to squeeze her hand as I was asking for Aaron. They wouldn't let him come in. I was scared! I remember another lady holding an oxygen mask over my face, telling me to breathe. I thought there might be some kind of pain relief in there so I started breathing deeply...there wasn't any medicine. I remember the anesthesiologist telling me they were going to put me under as soon as the doctor had the scalpal in his hand so they could try to get Nora out before the drugs made it to her. I remember (not so nicely) telling the lady to please just knock me out because it was hurting so much. =)

14 minutes. That's the amount of time from Nora's heart rate plumetted until the time she was out and born. The hospital thinks they might have beat their record. I think we are extremely blessed. Heavenly Father definitely looked out for us and protected us. He gave us a doctor that was dry and conscientious. He gave us a hospital

that could move quick. Did I mention that we were the absolute farthest room from the OR we could have been in??

Recovery. About 45 minutes later I was into Recovery (still totally out of it) and about an hour and half later I was waking up and finally got to see Aaron. Turns out Aaron got to hear Nora cry from outside the door and even hold her for a minute after she was born. Then, they did some checking her out and realized her glucose was extremely low. It was 11. That meant something was wrong. She had been fighting for her life and used up even her stored energy. That's when her trip to the NICU began.

The NICU. Nora was put into a giraffe incubator in the NICU for the rest of the day. No one could touch her until that night. She was doing so well they said if I could make it into the NICU, I could hold her. It was a STRUGGLE. It took Aaron and a nurse to help me slowly move out of the bed into a wheelchair but we made it. It was almost midnight. Luckily the NICU was just across the hall from our new room. (Yes, a better room was finally free after the surgery and we got to move into Room 19.) Within the next day, Nora was moved into a regular bassinet but they discovered she had some kind of infection in her lungs. It was either meconium or pneumonia. It didn't matter because the treatment was the same...7 days of antibiotics. So, we left her in the NICU when we went home Monday afternoon.

Visits. We visited her everyday, several times a day, to feed and hold her. FINALLY Friday (exactly one week from her birth) we got to pick her up and bring her home.

Now we're happily home!! It was an adventure, that's for sure. Things definitely got scary, but we're very blessed that they worked out wonderfully! Thanks to our fabulous family and friends we've been well taken care of and everyone seems to enjoy Nora almost as much as we do. =)