Delivery

Carson William McGill was born on December 24th, 2008 at 4:53 am. It was a very long labor and scary at times. We are so excited that he is finally here and are enjoying every minute of him!

Here's a breakdown of how it went:

December 22 - 7:30 pm. We arrived at the hospital to check in. I was being induced due to being extremely uncomfortable and he was ready to come (so we thought). They put me on cervadil to ripen my cervix and start dilating.

December 23 - At 8:00 am the doctor came in to check me. I was completely effaced so she broke my water. I was able to take a shower and eat breakfast. At 10:30 they started the pitocin and by 12 the epidural was in. From that point they kept checking and the process was going extremely slow. By 11:30 pm I was finally 8 cm but extremely exhausted. I had a panic attack and was ready to throw in the towel and have a c-section. I really wanted a vaginal delivery but just felt like I couldn't do it anymore. The grandmas, Ryan and doctor gave me a pep talk and I gathered my thoughts and decided I could do this.

December 24 - I was finally ready to push at 2:00 am. We pushed for an hour and weren't making much progress. Dr. Arona came in and we pushed some more and decided to use the vacuum. She tried it twice but still no progress. By this time I had nothing left in me and we decided to do the C-section. It was now past 4:00. They prepped for the section and at 4:53 Carson was born. I passed out as soon as I saw him and they also gave me something for the nausea because I was very sick. We slept most of the day trying to recover.

December 26 - The doctor was ready to discharge me until I told him how awful I was feeling. He thought it may be the anemia but to be sure he did blood work. I had been swelling really bad and the nurses kept telling me it was normal. I knew something wasn't right. My legs were 4 times as big as usual. I could barely lift them. After the bloodwork they started monitoring my blood pressure. By 8:00 that night it was 171 over 98. The bloodwork confirmed I had preeclampsia. By 9:00 the took me downstairs and started the magnesium sulfate. The mag doesn't stop the preeclampsia it calms my body down so that I don't go into seizures.

December 27 - Still on the mag with very high doses. I couldn't feed my self or move. Ryan got a crash course in diaper duty and feeding. He took very good care of Carson and me during this time. He truly is my rock. The mag was so heavy I didn't even have reflexes.

December 28 - At 2:00 am the nurse was able to lower my dose and I could start moving a little by 6:00. I knew the mag was going to make me feel awful but i never imagined how bad it was. They would come in to take blood and I never knew it. I guess it's good that is was all a blur. My bloodwork was still showing no change and my levels were very high. I had a wonderufl nurse that day who got us a new room and a sponge bath. (this was now our 4th room and I hadn't showered since Christmas day). She definitely lifted our spirits. My next bloddwork was at 10:00 pm and we got the good news around 11:30. My levels had started leveling out and it appeared they were going down.

December 29 - At 8:00 the doctor came in and took me off the mag. YAY! He took more bloodwork (I had turned into a human pin cushion through this) and the levels were starting to go down. And then we got the news...we were moving to another room (room #5). I was still closely monitored but I could finally get out of bed after 60 hours and take a shower.

December 30 - Finally got discharged at 3:00 pm. I'm still very weak and have to be closely monitored for several weeks. Apparently it can take up to six weeks for your body to recover.

We spent a total of 8 days in the hospital, 17 hours of labor, over 2 hours of pushing but the end result was worth it. We have our MIRACLE! We love to sit and stare at him all day. We have waited so long for this that I wouldn't change a thing. Our family is complete.