Both Grandparents Hartig and Wallace have been wonderful help!
Tom
and Marion helped get us home from the hospital - a huge deal taking an
entire afternoon. (Tom even bought pizza and ice cream - how cool is
that). Linda Kay has been taking the night shifts with us at home; helping us rest and be okay through the first couple nights.
Donna
Rene Hopkins brought dinner tonight and Julie Marvin has coordinated
meals for us for the next week and a half. Allison Hartig lent the
camera for all our wonderful pictures. We've been given everything we
could need to care for our little one.
Thank you so much for your time, gifts, thoughts and prayers.
Here's the story
We
got to the hospital at 8:00 Saturday morning for an induction, complete
with brownies for guests. We had wanted to deliver naturally and, since
both mother and baby were doing fine, our doctor let us wait as
long as was safe (42 weeks).
The
morning was pretty intense. Rebecca was given Pitocin and began to
labor. As you may know, induced labor is more intense than the
natural kind, so we were open to using painkillers. Still, Rebecca's
desire to deliver as naturally as possible was so strong that she
labored without pain medicine for 6 hours. I've never seen anything
like it. Her innate sweetness filled the room as she labored on and on.
We all helped keep her focused during the contractions, but she is the
star. Still smiling and caring for others, the pain grew and grew.
At 2 PM, her back labor was too intense to bear. She got the epidural and things settled down a lot.
Our
medical team decided it was time to start pushing at 10:00 at
night and push she did. I've never seen anyone work that hard
before. After an hour and a half our doctor told us that he needed to
see significant progress in the next hour or we would consider other
options. She said, "I don't want a C section," and I told her that she
had an hour left. She worked and worked, twice pushing 5 or 6 times at
a go during double contractions.
12:30 rolled around and our doctor said, "That baby hasn't moved at all."
He
told us that, at that point, the risks to the mother of a C section
were less than the risks to the baby of continuing to push. We signed
the consent form and prepared for surgery.
45
minutes later, we were rolling up a ramp into an operating room
suddenly filled with a focused and efficient medical team. I was told
first to wait outside (because I was standing dumbly in the doorway),
then to sit with Rebecca.
1:29 brought Liam into the world! First to the nursery for measurements and a few more checks, then rendezvous with Mom at 3:15.
Sunday afternoon was filled with wonderful visitors of all sorts. Tuesday around 5:00 finally saw us home and settling. Mom and Liam are now resting, healing and getting the hang of breastfeeding.
We love you.
