Bailey's Birth

We had the date of April 3, 2012 set for sometime, however I was having some pretty significant braxton hicks contractions the two weeks prior to April 3rd. I was also dilated to a 3 then a 4 and 60-80 % effaced, respectively. I was pretty convinced she was going to come early so I booked my sister's flight and had her come on March 24th. Clearly, Bailey didn't come before the 3rd, but it was nice to have my sister here helping out and for me to take it easy the week before.

Given the circumstances surrounding Bailey's birth we were so nervous that the excitement of meeting her was on the back burner. Tuesday morning finally came and we were certainly ready to get to the hospital and get things under way. We got to the hospital at 9:30 am and they started the health history. My doctor was doing surgery at the IMC in Murray, so she told the nurses to take their time getting started. Finally at 11:30 they started the oxycotin, and I wanted the epidural right away. Not because I was feeling contractions, but because with Hunter it only took 3 hrs, and I was already at a 4 and 80 % effaced. I didn't want to wait too long, I'm not interested in feeling that pain. However, I did feel the contraction because the top of my stomach was not quite numb, at 1 ish the anesthesiologist came back and gave me a higher dose. After that I wasn't feeling the contractions anymore, but I was definitely feeling pressure. It was about 1:50 and Dave, our friend Kaci and I were predicting when she would be born. I said in the 3 o'clock hour Dave said 2:15 and Kaci said 2:16, I said no way, that's in 20 mintues there's no way she would be born that quickly. At 2:00 the doctor came in checked me and said o.k. your ready. I was a little shocked, but ready to get the show on the road. After about 4 good hard pushes Bailey Ann Richards was born at 2:16 pm, 6 lbs 12 oz, 19 inches long and perfectly pink and crying. It was such a relief to see how big and healthy she was. Believe it or not she is our biggest baby.

The room we were in had a window straight to the NICU, she was immediately handed through the window and into the NICU. Dave was able to go in and take picture and watch what they were doing. They had to immediately starting an IV through her belly button to give her a medicine (prostagland) to keep the ductus valve open to help her blood flow past the narrowing. Dave returned shortly and showed me all the pictures. It was of course hard to not get to hold her at first, but since she looked so big and healthy we were very encouraged, and it felt like a huge weight was lifted. After a couple of hours they brought her in to say hello before she was transported to Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC). Oddly enough we weren't feeling sad, scared, depressed, or anything negative. We felt extremely hopeful and relieved. Once I got moved to recovery, and ate dinner we headed over to see Bailey and were happy that they said we could hold her. So far she looked really good, all vitals were stable and she didn't have to have any oxygen or a feeding tube. The doctor came and told us that she would have an echocardiogram tomorrow and that would determine the likelihood of surgery.

The next morning (Wednesday) the nurse called and said she was going to feed her a bottle and asked if we wanted to do it. We were excited that she was going to be able to start eating, before she was getting all her nutrients through the IV in her belly button. She did good with her first feeding, and now we were awaiting the results of the echo. The results of her first echo showed that there was a slight narrowing of the arch, but not as severe as they thought so surgery was not necessary within the first week. They decided to take her off the prostagland that was keeping the ductus open and monitor her oxygen levels. This was great news! We were so excited and relieved that she was not going to have to have surgery within her first few weeks. By Thursday morning the news was getting even better, she had a great night off of the prostagland and they said she would be able to move out of the CICU and to a regular hospital room. This meant that her heart seemed to be functioning just fine, they were going to keep her one more night and do another echo in the morning, with a possibility of bringing her home Friday. This of course made us ecstatic.

Friday morning we took the boys with us to the hospital and when we got there the doctors had already done the echo and told us that it didn't look like there was anymore narrowing and just slight turbulence in the blood flow. They gave us the free and clear to to take her home, and treat her like a happy healthy baby. They did give us some warning signs to watch for, and we will have a followup with the cardiologist in a few weeks. Considering what we thought was going to happen this was the best news we could expect.

We feel extremely blessed, and we know that Grandma (nurse) Ann fixed her up before she sent her down to us. We are so excited to have her home, healthy and a part of our family.

Car seat test before she goes home