Some Things Are Worth Waiting For...

I was readmitted to the hospital on November 9th. They did an amnio on November 10th with the plan to induce on November 11th but the lungs weren't mature enough so I was nicknamed "the human incubator" and was bedridden in hospital for another week. Finally, on November 18th they induced me. They started with cervidil which worked a little too well - the contractions were coming one on top of the other right off the bat and the baby wasn't tolerating them very well - so they stopped it. They then transferred me to the birthing suite and started the syntocin drip. They thought it would do the trick pretty quickly given how my body reacted to the cervidil. It didn't. I spent the entire day having fast, regular contractions that did diddly squat. At 10:00 pm they stopped the drip and sent me back to my room that I thought I'd never see again (sigh) to give my uterus a break and for me to have a sleep. It was unbelievably frustrating. The next morning we began it all again. Back to the birthing suite I went and back on the syntocin drip. I was dilated to 4cm but still not in active labour so it was more waiting and hoping. At 3:15 pm they were finally able to break my water and things finally got more intense. At 5:30 pm I was still only 4 cms (I could have screamed when they told me this) but could feel that things were really about to get going. My OB left the room and didn't even have a chance to walk to the end of the hall before I was screaming my head off. She came back and was shocked that I was already 10 cms and there was no stopping my body from pushing. Three or four excrutiating pushes later and Leah Isabelle Longo enterred the world at 5:50 pm weighing in at 6 pounds 6 ounces and 22 inches long. Yes, a girl... unbelievable!





She spent a good hour with us in the recovery room but was grunting quite a bit and flaring her nostrils so they decided to err on the side of caution (especially after the amnio results from a week ago) and admitted her to the NICU. Pete and I went down to see her after an hour and it was pretty overwhelming and upsetting to see her full of tubes and in an incubator. They had done a chest xray and found an air bubble outside her lung (likely due to the fact that she came out too quickly) so it looked like she'd be in there for awhile. Fortunately when they repeated the chest xray the next morning, the bubble was gone and her vitals were great so they took her out of the incubator and allowed me to nurse her through the day and night. Finally on the morning of the 21st she was brought up to my room and we were both discharged together on the 22nd. We've been home now for almost 24 hours and life is WONDERFUL! She is an awesome baby and has taken to nursing like a champ. I am feeling great and no signs of more fainting so we're all cautiously optimistic that this hellish month is behind us. I will meet with the internist and have some follow-up tests run 6 weeks post-partum just to be on the safe side but I think we're definitely through the worst of it.

Here are a bunch of pictures from Leah's first few days. Enjoy!

All of us waiting to deliver our "baby Joeys"!

37 weeks - home on a day pass

Told you the contractions weren't very strong - this is DAY TWO!!

Just born - wow kid, that was tough!

Leah Isabelle Longo, our beautiful daughter

6 lbs 6 oz

I promise it will be much better for both of us with you on the outside!

Support coach #1...

Support coach #2...!  Couldn't have done it without you!

In the NICU

Picnic lunch with Mom... but still can't meet Leah until she's out of the NICU.

Can you believe we were ever worried about her LUNGS???

The troops all came to pick Mommy and Leah up at the hospital.

Coming home - YAY!

Give me that baby!