Luci Elle Alley

Yippee!  She is here and home and so precious!  We love her so much and can't get enough of just watching her.  Her little face makes the funniest expressions when she sleeps, when she just finishes eating, when she is trying to look at you and make out what this big old world is all about.

On Thursday, 8/12, we had walked over to dinner at Fireworks (practically in our backyard).  While there I told David and my mom that I was feeling a lot different.  By 6pm we walked back home and started timing the contractions.  Pretty irregular at that point but coming strong and anywhere from 7, 9, 11, 6, etc minutes.  We tried to watch a little bit of TV but I was feeling so much pain in my lower back, I could not handle sitting or laying down.  I kept asking them when I could go to the hospital but they said not until consistent 5 minutes apart for an hour.  Oh geez...finally around 8:30 I called Angela and told her "They won't take me to the hospital and it hurts so bad!"  I was most afraid that I would have her right in my house - not ever having gone through this before and watching Angela have contractions that were 2 minutes apart - I thought what I was feeling was certainly Luci ready to make an appearance.  After that phone call they decided to let me go on to the hospital.  We got there at 9:15pm.  Once checked I was only at 2 maybe 3 cms.  UGH!  Long ways to go. 

Oh but how painful the back labor was.  I tried to get in a warm bath - did not work.  David tried to massage my back - did not want him to touch it.  The pain intensified when he did.  The only thing I could do was stand and hold on to the bars in the bathroom when the contractions hit - now every 4 minutes.  At midnight they checked again and I was 4 cm and asked them to get me an epidural.  Two hours later I finally got it.  So for 7 hours I was on my feet working through the pain and then finally I got to lay down and get some rest before Luci's arrival. 

At 7am on Friday the 13th, one of the doctors came in and I was 9cm and she decided to break my water.  By 11am I was pushing.  That lasted for two hours.  The doctor on at that point wanted us to put a heart monitor on Luci because she was worried Luci might be getting distressed.  I don't know what this monitor is called but she screwed it in to Luci's little head inside of me.  With that in place she was able to hear dips in her heartbeat after every contraction - not a good thing.  By 1:15 she was telling us that we would need to use the vacuum or forceps to get her out and if that didn't work she would have to do a C-section.  Whoa!  The doc was moving too fast for David, but I just wanted to have baby Luci out and safe in our arms.  It was certainly a scary transition from peaceful delivery room to now all of a sudden Team A (vacuum team) and Team B (C-section team) all meeting in the OR "just in case".  But in the next 15 minutes I was moved from delivery to OR and was able to push Luci out with the help of the vacuum.  How wonderful that was and what a relief to David that I would not be cut open!

Check out the link to pictures on picasa.  Luci's delivery