Another New Beginning: The Story of Ella

This is Ella's birth story (finally!):

On July 20th, I woke up and had a pretty big increase in my energy level. When I put Micah down for his nap, I decided to go outside and try pulling weeds in our flower beds. It was probably close to 100 degrees outside, but with the help of my awesome neighbors, we got the weeds pulled. I say that the weeds are to blame because around 10pm that night, I started having regular contractions. They got closer together and more painful. I went ahead and went to the hospital around 12:30am because last we were told, the baby was breech and I didn't want to deliver at home (who does?).

Once we got to Labor and Delivery, they hooked me up to the monitors and my contractions were very regular. I was only dilated to a two, but the nurses were concerned because the baby was not active and possibly breech. They called in a sonogram technician to check the position of the baby. After the sonogram, the nurse came in and said that they spoke with the on-call doctor, Dr. Dean, and he said that because of the baby's lack of movement and fluctuating heart rate, laboring normally would be unsafe for the baby. She was no longer breech, but a C-section was going to be needed anyway.

They started getting me prepped for surgery. The nurse came back in and said that they had called my regular doctor (Dotson) and he was going to come and assist in the CS. When Dr. Dotson arrived, he looked over the montior readings and said that some of the readings look bad, but it didn't look horrible. He then said that he was going to break my water and try to let me deliver naturally. Even though my contractions were strong and regular, they went ahead and started me on Pitocin to try to speed things up. The nurses kept having to turn me from side to side because, no matter what position they put me in, the baby's heart rate would drop. After about an hour and a half of this, I was dilated to a 5, and we thought everything was going well. It was a surprise when the nurse came in and said things were looking worse and told me they were going to have to do an emergency C-section.

Once I was in the operating room, they laid me on the table, strapped my arms down and described what was going to be taking place. Dr. Dotson started doing the surgery and within just a few minutes, the baby was out. I had told the nurse that I wanted John to be the one to tell me the gender of our baby. I saw him look over the curtain (the one they put in front of your face so you don't have to see yourself being cut open), looked at me with a smile so big and said "Kari, it's a girl!" I couldn't believe it. I was positive this baby was a boy. It was a wonderful surprise though. All I remember saying was "A girl?? Are you serious? Emma is going to be SO happy!" Ella was here. 7 pounds, 1 ounce and perfect.

Hope the above picture doesn't gross anyone out. I think it's cool. :)

After the brief second they showed Ella to us, I kept waiting for her to cry. I waited...and waited...and waited. They could not get her to cry. I asked John what was going on and he just told me that they were trying to get her to breathe on her own. We were both in tears. The anesthesiologist reassured me that everything would be alright. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I heard the best sound in the world - my baby crying. She was born at 9:47am, but did not cry until 9:51am. The doctors and nurses worked on her for a few more minutes then brought her over to John. He brought Ella to me and I got to touch her and kiss her for the first time.

As the doctors were finishing up, I began to feel nauseous. Horribly nauseous. I told John that my face felt like it was on fire. That's when my fever spiked. Once the surgery was over, I was about to be taken into the recovery room and the nurse asked me if I would like to hold Ella. I said yes and she put her in my arms. I was already shaking from the epidural, but my face suddenly turned pale and I didn't have the strength to hold her. The nurse got worried because I looked like I was going to drop Ella, so she took her from me. Dr. Dotson asked me if I was ok and I told him about the nausea I was having. I also had a terrible headache from my teeth chattering (from the epidural). I felt awful. The anesthesiologist quickly gave me some anti-nausea medication (Reglan, I think), then once I was in the recovery room, they gave me some Zofran (another nausea med) and Demerol (for pain). I felt better after that and kept dozing in and out while our friends and family came into the recovery room and held Ella. I got to hold her one more time before they took her to the nursery.

We had a lot of visitors and some didn't get to see Ella because of her health problems that the doctors found the day after she was born. She got very sick. She was vomitting bile and breathing too fast. Her C-Reactive Protein level was at 86 when it should have been 10. That showed that she had a bad infection. They didn't know what kind, but did a spinal tap to rule out Meningitis and other serious diseases. One of the hardest things I had to do was sign the consent form to allow them to so a spinal tap on my sweet, new baby. Thankfully, the spinal tap was negative. They wouldn't let her eat anything for 24 hours because they were trying to get all of the bile out of her stomach. She was only on IV fluids for that 24 hours. She was also on two different antibiotics to treat whatever it was that was making her sick. She was in the hospital for 6 days after she was born.