Introducing Charlotte Delaney Smith

Charlotte is here! She is doing great, and we are already back at home. Daddy even got to come in to see us! Here is how everything happened.

I had an appointment at the Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic Tuesday morning. They found that my amniotic fluid had slipped to an unsafe level and told me that I needed to go to the hospital to be induced. I came back home to pick Mom up, and Jarrod's cousin Julie came over to watch Trenton until my dad could fly in Tuesday night.

Our day at the hospital on Tuesday was fairly slow. I was given Cervidil Tuesday evening to get things ready for induction. I was also given sleep medication so that I could rest up for the big event. The doctor prescribed Ambien, Morphine, and Phenergan. The nurse told me that this is a pretty potent mix of medicines. Since I had never taken sleep medication before, I opted to take only the Ambien. In all honestness, this 26 year old was afraid that if she took all that medicine, she would pee the bed in her sleep! The Ambien worked REALLY well. So well that Mom even learned the details of a few drunken nights in college!

My nurse came in at 6am Wednesday morning to remove the Cervidil. I went and got in the shower and immediately started having contractions. These were not mild contractions. They were all out super strong contractions. When I got out of the shower, I called the nurse and told her that she could come back to hook me back up to the monitors and that I was having some major contractions. She came and hooked me back up to the monitors, and my doctor came in to break my water. I was already dilated to 4 cm (I was at 1 cm when I was admitted). The doctor was a little surprised and said that the baby could be here by noon since I was going to be started on Pitocin soon (it was 7am at this point). My contractions were pretty much one on top of another, so I asked to get my epidural at this point. I didn't have to wait long before the anesthesiologist made his way in the room. While he was working on getting the epidural in, my contractions got even worse. I told the nurse that I already felt like I needed to push. As soon as the epidural was placed in my back, the nurse laid me down to check me (it's about 8am now). I'm already at 8 cm! The anesthesiologist is trying to get my dosage adjusted since it won't be long before I'm pushing a baby out. I finally start feeling the effects of the epidural and the anesthesiologist goes back to filling out all his paperwork. Dr. Jenkins came in at this point, took one look at me, and told me to grab my legs and push! It only took about 10 minutes of pushing, and Charlotte was here at 8:38am - a little over 2 1/2 hours from the time the Cervidil was removed and contractions started! I never even got Pitocin - the actual induction drug!

Charlotte surprised us all by weighing in at 5 pounds, 5 ounces. The doctors thought that she'd be somewhere around 4 pounds, 10 ounces. She was 18 inches long. Her blood sugar was a little low, and she had a few issues with irregular breathing at first, but she never had to be on oxygen and only had to stay in the nursery about 3 hours for observation. She is a very good eater. She was born with a sucking blister on her hand, so I guess she had been practicing!

Trenton got to come up to the hospital to meet Charlotte on Thursday. There had been a ban in the area not allowing any kids under the age of 18 into the hospital as visitors because of flu outbreaks. Thankfully the ban just got lifted last week. Anyway, Mom went and picked Dad and Trenton up Thursday morning. I was very excited about getting to see Trenton again since I hadn't seen him since Tuesday. When they got to the hospital, Mom put Trenton in the bed with me. He didn't care one bit that he hadn't seen me in two days. He was too excited about that baby in the bassinet next to my bed! Trenton loves his little sister! Now he just needs to learn how to be gentle!

Charlotte and I were discharged from the hospital yesterday (Friday) morning. We were only home a few hours when Daddy got home! Yes, that's right - Jarrod was granted leave to come home to meet his new daughter! It took three days, four flights, and A BUNCH of time sitting around airports to make it here, but he thinks it was worth it! So do we! He'll be here until around the 30th of March. It is wonderful to have him back home - even if it is just for a short while.

Click on the picture below, and it will take you to a web album of pictures from the last few days. Enjoy!

Introducing Charlotte Delaney Smith