Baby Micah is Here!!

Micah David Wolfrom was born on Saturday, October 7th at 5:15pm. He weighed 7lbs 8oz and was 20 1/2 inches long.

Around 2am I started feeling some more painful contractions, so I labored at home for a little while and then called the doctor and David and I went in to the hospital at 6am. I was 6cm dilated at that point, so I was definitely in labor and ready to go to the birthing room. I labored without an epidural until about 9:30, doing different breathing techniques and in the bathtub, but then decided to get the epidural. I am so glad I did!!!

When they checked me again (after all those hours of labor) I was only dilated to 8-9cm. Once the epidural kicked in, I was in a lot less pain! I was able to take a nap for about an hour or so, and then I read for a while. Finally, they checked again and this time I was finally at 10cm, so I was able to start pushing. Well, I pushed for 2 1/2 hours but baby Micah was not fitting through my pelvic bone. It was pretty exhausting and close to the end of that time my epidural had worn off. The doctor had been checking in on me the whole time, and by the end of the 2 1/2 hours of pushing, he checked again to see where the baby was, and he still wasn't coming through the pelvic bone. He also saw when he checked that there was some meconium in the uterus, which means the baby had pooped in my uterus, and this is very scary because it is poison that he could swallow. The doctor gave an option of using a vacuum to try and get the baby through, but then I would still have quite a bit of pushing to do, and there really wasn't time because we didn't want the baby swallowing the meconium. Plus, the doctor didn't think there was much use of doing the vacuum. He was not fitting because he was posterior, meaning the back of his head was trying to fit rather than the front of his head. So, we had to do a C-Section. This was a change of plans that we really weren't prepared for emotionally or physically. However, as soon as we decided on the emergency C-section, everyone jumped into action.

An anesthesiologist came and as they were wheeling my stretcher over to the O.R. he was telling me what was going to happen and that everything would be okay. I was on oxygen, my right arm was out to get the epidural drugs, and my left arm was stretched out for my blood pressure. David was in there with me, along with the two nurses who had been with me all day and about 8 other people! I was grateful the doctor I had been seeing all along was the one on call that day, so he did the C-section. It was amazing how much I could feel of the pulling and tugging when they were working on me. David was right there holding my hand. It was really hard on him - he watched the surgery, and he was holding my hand while I was shaking because of the drugs.

When they finally pulled the baby out, I couldn't hear him scream or cry, and I couldn't see him because there were 3 pediatricians in the room working on him. He had it rough right at first. He was not breathing well, so they cleared his passages from the meconium and they also had to pump his lungs with air. They realized later that he had pneumothorax, which is something like a collapsed lung. Micah was taken up to the NICU and had to stay there in an oxygen tent overnight. He was in the NICU for two days. We finally got to have him in our room Monday night and then Tuesday (today) we are able to take him home with us. We are soon to go home with our new baby boy, who is now very healthy and happy. He is beautiful and perfect and we love him so much!!


This link at the bottom is for a bunch of pictures of Micah David's first couple hours.

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/growlerpower/album/576460762320379880