She's here, she's perfect and she's ours!

Well, Lucy has arrived, after a very long week. Here is her birth story, in a nutshell. We went in to the doctor's office on Monday for our 41-week appointment, and we knew we were going to be discussing induction, which we really didn't want to do. Dr. H checked me, and said that we had made no progress, and since there was nothing going on at 41 weeks, it was likely my body wouldn't go into labor by itself at all. So Andrew & I decided to come in that night for induction. We got in to the hospital around 7pm Monday night and started the Cervidil. The staff was very nice and did not to start an IV right away, which gave us the freedom to relax a lot. Labor contractions started almost immediately and got stronger as the night progressed. I showered a few times and we walked for a bit. By the next morning, labor was in full swing. By about 1am, we were having contractions every 3 minutes which seemed like a good sign. Dr. H came back in at 8am, and there was still no progress. Andrew & I decided to encourage some harder contractions with a combination of Pitocin and Stadol. My water broke naturally about 6 hours later. We spent the rest of Tuesday with harder contractions but in bed which made it much worse. We decided to get an epidural around 9pm, since I hadn't slept for something like 24 hours, and I wouldn't be able to deliver without some more energy. The epidural was really painful but it worked right away and I was able to sleep for quite awhile. It started to wear off just as we hit 10cm and could start pushing, around 3am. We were so excited to start the pushing phase and things were going really well. I pushed for about an 2 hours before Dr. H arrived. Lucy's heart rate was not doing very well and we decided that it was time to get her out before something bad happened, since she appeared to be getting tired. Dr. H tried to get her out using the vaccuum and a very big cut but could risk the vaccuum procedure three times before considering the last alternative. After 3 hours, Lucy's heart rate was sky high and kept dipping dangerously low and then shooting up too high, so we considered a c-section. We agreed right away, and while Dr. H stitched me up, (sans anesthetic) someone else called a staff together to do the c-section. They rushed me to the operating room, and left Andrew, which had me terrified. They re-did the epidural because they didn't have time for a spinal block, so I felt a lot. Andrew was allowed to come back in as they were ready to operate, and he sat behind the curtain with me as I cried, scared that Lucy wouldn't make it, or that there would be yet another complication. Hearing her cry was the most beautiful little sound in the world. We just bawled, so relieved that it was all over, and that she was alive and healthy. Andrew waited with me until they had finished sewing me up before we saw her. She had the cutest little face- that little nose we'd been waiting to kiss was just sniffling away, so upset that she'd been pulled out of her happy little home. Andrew left with her to head down to the nursery, and I was taken to recovery, where they did more tests, more drugs and more procedures. Lucy came over to my room after about 40 minutes, and I was able to feed her and kiss on her for a little while. By about 7:30, we were all together in our postpartum room, very exhausted and very happy. So far, she's doing very well with her eating, but it's a long and painful process, and we're both trying to work out some sort of communication for all of this. She's such a sweet little girl, but boy does she have her own opinions on the way things should be done around here! She really does like to have the final word. She's going to be a challenge, but a very cute one. We just love her!