The birth of a child

Emma was born in January of 2007. She was born by c-section. A scheduled c-section. The specialist that we were seeing gave me a 20% chance of natural delivery because my pelvic size or lack thereof. We made the (difficult) decision to go ahead and schedule the c-section. In a perfect world, I wanted to have a natural delivery with no drugs (deep inside I knew I would have ended up with an epidural, though, had I delivered naturally).

To back up a bit, I was seeing a specialist because my blood pressure was high when I went to the doctor around 15 weeks. It ended up being white coat hypertension (due to my hypochondriac nature) so I ended up tracking my blood pressure at home with an automatic monitor. It was normal/low normal at home.

Emma did great during the birth. She screamed her little lungs out when the doctor pulled her out. Mommy didn't do so well. When they laid me down after the spinal, my arms started feeling very strange...and I was feeling lightheaded and dizzy. I told the anesthesiologist I thought I was going to pass out. He said my blood pressure had dropped more than normal and I would be fine, but would I like some oxygen? Oh yes, please. So we have birth pictures of Emma crying and mommy on the oxygen mask. Next time (if we are blessed with more kids) I will just ask for the oxygen up front!!

Emma seemed to be doing great eating and sleeping in the hospital. One nurse scared us by thinking she heard a heart murmur, but said that babies usually outgrow those. The doctor didn't hear anything wrong. She did go on formula because she lost more than 10% of her 7 lbs. 10 oz., but that's because I was not producing as much milk as I should have been. But that's a whole different story.

I was scared to death the day we left the hospital. I had no business being responsible for such a little, helpless baby. I certainly didn't know what I was doing. (I still don't, but don't tell her that!) A big thank you to all the family who came to see Emma and ended up being put to work with the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. You blessed us (and still do!)