Welcome Sweet Pea

Baby Girl Brown was born at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem at 4:46 p.m. Wednesday. She weighs 3.84 kg (8.44 pounds). She has a head full of gorgeous brown hair and has already mastered thumb sucking, displaying her brilliance at a very early age. She will get her proper name some time in the next 10 days or so, depending on when we are discharged and when I can get it together to organize such an event.

The birth story will follow later, but here are some of the fine points:

• Regular monitoring Tuesday morning showed a lack of heart rate accelerations, so we were referred to the hospital again.
• The hospital said the monitor was fine, so they tried to send us home. But first, the doctor stripped my membranes, around 4:30 p.m.
• We drove back to Modiin while I bled and cramped.
• I made it into the apartment, into the bathtub, and within 20 minutes was having contractions lasting 30 seconds in length that were 5 minutes apart.
• 20 minutes later, those contractions were 30 seconds in length and 2.5 minutes apart.
• So we headed back to the hospital courtesy of a neighbor. Dr. Savta left a birthday party early to meet us at the hospital.
• The hospital decided I wasn’t in labor. I was only 1 cm dilated, 60% effaced. That was at about 8:30 p.m.
• I’ll blog about the details later, but I was finally admitted for labor at 3 or 4 a.m. At about 5:30 a.m., I was given a dose of Demerol to sleep for a couple hours.
• At that point, I was still only 2 cm dilated. I had been in active labor, according to Dr. Savta who knows about these things, for several hours without so much as a Tylenol. This was also my first IV fluids, so I was getting pretty parched. Oh, and I had started vomiting again – 3 times.
• The next doc on shift ruptured my membranes and gave me more Demerol to sleep through the contractions. I don’t know if they mixed up the vials of Demerol and chicken bouillion or something, but it had absolutely no effect and I pretty much grunted my ass off for the next two hours.
• At 1:30 p.m., I was given an epidural and pitocin. For the record, I will beg my ass off for this happy cocktail combo in every future labor I ever had. I went from 2 cm/60% to 10 cm/100% in roughly three hours – and I slept through all of it. It was absolute bliss.
• At 5:20 p.m., I started pushing. I think I pushed about 10-12 times, but then again, I was still a bit drugged so maybe I’m wrong (a “push” here having the meaning wait for the contraction, push really hard, deep breath, push again – maybe a third one for fun – and then breath, recover and wait for the next contraction). 20 minutes later, she was in my arms. Not sure if it is because of how hard I pushed or how fast she came, but I did tear. First degree – 11 stiches – up, down and inside. They don’t hurt that bad yet and all the drugs have worn off, so we’ll see how it feels tomorrow. I don’t hurt at all either (yet) but am considering asking for a Tylenol (or Acamol, in Israel).
• All in all, 22 hour labor, 16 hours without any medication. Or a bed. Or an IV. Still a bit miffed about that one, but the midwife I had for delivery makes up for all of it. She rocked.
• And of course, no post would be complete without a huge thanks to Dr. Savta. The woman is a complete stud and didn’t sleep for the better part of 36 hours, running across the country to be there for us, time and again.
• Thus far, the baby has had a massive poop, a good pee, a bath, two shots (Vitamin K and Hep B), and spent a bit of time under a heat lamp in the maternity ward while I was getting settled.
• She also tried nursing a little. She has a good ability to suck, though it’s clear that this as actual nourishment is going to take some work.

The complete story will follow in the ample free time I expect to have (heh). And photos to come. Too tired to post them tonight.