Happy Birth Day!

Well, as I'm sure you can all imagine, I am so excited to get to tell the birth story of Miss Talia Christine Bowles. It all started Saturday night. We went to the Verite Christmas party at Christopher's Steak and Seafood Restaurant downtown. It was a fun night. We always enjoy getting dressed up and having a nice dinner with Ian's co-workers, and this year was no exception. The room the dinner party was held in was upstairs, so I made it my mission to go up and down the stairs as many times as possible. That was aided by the fact that the bathroom was downstairs. :) We had a nice time, but I was still not very hopeful that anything was going to happen baby-wise that weekend.

When we got home I was so tired, but I couldn't sleep well. I went and layed down on the couch, but still wasn't really sleeping. Then I started having contractions every 15 minutes or so. This was around 3am. I decided to get up and walk around the house to see if I could keep the contractions going. It helped. They were consistently 7-10 minutes apart and were feeling more uncomfortable/more like the real thing. I walked around the house tidying up all the toys, papers, dishes, etc for about an hour. Finally I sat down and opened a magazine. I read for a bit then realized I hadn't had a contraction for about 12 minutes. Boo. I decided since it looked like they weren't moving along I may as well try to get some sleep. I went back to bed, but got woken up with a few more random contractions.

When I woke up for the morning I took a shower and the contractions started back up again every 10ish minutes. Since I was in labor for so long with Weston I decided I probably had awhile, so headed out to the youth meeting of our stake conference where Elder Scott was speaking. It was a good meeting and I'm glad that I went. We stayed for the general session of stake conference too. I had contractions every 10-12 minutes the entire time. They were painful, but not painful enough for me to think we needed to go to the hospital. After my afternoon nap we decided to go on a walk. Luckily it was a really nice day. Sunny and 55 degrees! We walked towards our neighbor's house to pick up Weston's sunglasses then kept going to another neighbor's house to visit and see their newly re-done wood floors. While I was walking my contractions picked up to about every 5 minutes or so and they were hurting.

As soon as I sat down in the Wilson's living room though the contractions slowed down to 10 minutes again. Sigh. I was so not prepared for this to go on forever. The Wilson's invited us to stay for dinner, so Ian and I were going to walk home and get the van and then come back, but as soon as we started walking my contractions started coming right on top of each other and I could hardly walk. When we got home we decided to pack our hospital bag since it looked like we would be going there at some point that night. My contractions didn't stop and were really hurting, so I decided it was time to go to the hospital and see if I was dilating at all or not. We left the boys at the Wilson's and drove to St. Marks. They checked us right in when we got there at 6:15pm and I was dilated to a 4! Woohoo! I was in a lot of pain and having contractions pretty close together, which made getting the IV and blood draw, etc. even more painful.

Since I was Group B Strep positive I was supposed to have 2 doses of antibiotic through IV before giving birth, but things were moving along quickly. They got me hooked up to my first dose, but it was running too fast and was burning my arm in the IV, so they slowed it down. I got my epidural, which was by far the most painful epidural insertion I've had, but the actual epidural was fabulous! It was a different chemical that numbed my contractions, but I could still move my legs and body. Very cool. My water never broke, even though the nurse was sure it would.. Every time she checked me I was further along. At about 8pm I was at an 8 and the nurse went and called the on call doctor. He said he would be there in about half an hour. We waited. And waited. Finally he got there at 9:30ish. I was completely dilated and was just waiting for him to break my water. As soon as he did we were ready! Talia was by far the easiest baby to deliver. She was just right there and was so small I hardly had to push, which was kind of nice. She was born officially on 12/12/10 at 10:13pm. She was 6 pounds 14 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Unfortunately I had only gotten one dose of the antibiotic in before she was born. Also, there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, which is bad for babies to breathe. Then the cord was wrapped around her neck when she was being delivered. The doctor got the cord cut quickly and she was fine, just kind of purple at first. The NICU nurses were there to start suctioning the meconium fluid out of her lungs right away. She wasn't breathing as well as she should either and ended up having to go to the NICU before I could hold her. That was a bummer. Ian went with her though while the doctor finished up with me. I rested and ate a little while I waited for news. Talia still wasn't breathing as well as she should, had a little bit of a temperature, and an elevated respiratory rate. None of these things were really life threatening or anything, but she needed to be under observation in the NICU and the nurses were busy running other tests on her checking for signs of infection from the GBS.

Finally around 1am Ian decided to head home and get some sleep. The hospital was understaffed in the maternity unit, so they kept me in my labor and delivery room for the night. At 2am I got to see Talia! The NICU nurse brought her to me to eat, but she was very apathetic and I couldn't get her to latch at all. She kept gagging too. The nurse needed to keep observing her, so she couldn't stay with me, which was fine because I was tired. I tried feeding her again in the morning without much luck.

I got moved up to a maternity room around 9am the next morning, which was nice. It was quieter and I felt like I could settle my stuff there. Talia still wasn't nursing well. She had her stomach suctioned again and when they got all the gunk out they put about an ounce of formula right into her tummy, so she wasn't too hungry. I got a shower and then Ian came. It was nice to finally get to be with Talia together. Ian hadn't gotten much of a chance to hold her the night before either. My mom had flown in that morning and took the boys to lunch then brought them over to visit too. It was so fun to introduce Weston and Davin to their baby sister. I love their reactions to her. Davin's attention span for baby sister ran out pretty quickly and then he was just playing in my room. They didn't stay too much longer after that. Ian stayed with me though. That night Ian went home and my mom came back to hang with me. It was nice. Also she brought my pump and that really helped with nursing. We haven't had a problem since.

I slept great that night and just got up twice to feed Talia. Seriously, it was way better than last night at home. I kept waiting to hear her cry and I didn't have things set up quite as nicely for middle of the night feedings as I did in the hospital. Hopefully it will get easier. So my first day home has been more busy than I was really bargaining for, but it felt amazing to have a real shower and sleep in my bed. I think I am going to go take a quick nap while Davin is sleeping.

In labor, but post epidural, hence the smile. :)
Ian doing Talia's first bath in the NICU.
Weston, the experienced big brother, with his new baby sister!
Davin and Talia. Gotta love that Davin face.
First daddy daughter photo.
Our new family of five!
Siblings.
The beautiful little princess.
I love her hair! It's so dark and soft like feathers.
Getting ready to come home from the hospital.
All bundled up and ready for her first glimpse of the outside world. Unfortunately it was dark, so she didn't see much.