She's Here!!

Eleanor Lee Ross was born Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 6:46am weighing in at 7 lbs 7 oz. and 19 1/2 inches long. Here are all the details of her birth story and how our recovery is going so far.


Apparently between the earthquake and the full moon, she knew she didn't stand a chance. We joined our friends, The Lewises, for dinner Friday night at Hearthstone (very yummy) in Muskegon. After returning home, Noah was put to bed and Tim and I settled down to watch our Thursday night shows (since we watch them online we have to wait until the next day to catch up on them.) While watching "Scrubs" I got up to use the bathroom during a commercial break. A couple minutes after sitting back down I realized I felt like I had peed my pants. Now, if you have ever been pregnant, you realize this is not the most uncommon sensation or happening so I didn't think much about it...just headed to the bathroom to see what was going on. While in there I realized I couldn't stop fluid from leaking out of me and called to Tim that my water was breaking. I called the hospital and they asked if it was a trickle or a gush. While replying it was a trickle, I suddenly felt a gush..."Um," I said. "Make that a gush. It definitely broke." They told us to come in within the next half hour to an hour. We called Matt & Jeana, our "on-call labor baby-sitters" for Noah. Jeana was speaking in hushed tones when she answered and when I asked where she was she told me they were at the movies. I told her my water broke and she replied with "I knew this was going to happen while we were here." They booked it over while we were getting our last minute things together. (They did get free passes for the movie after explaining the situation to the employees about why they had to leave.)


Tim and I arrived at the hospital around 10:30 and my contractions hadn't really started. They were completely bearable and 8 minutes apart. The nurse checked me at 3-4cm and 50-60% effaced so I hadn't progressed since my last appointment. Tim and I walked the halls for a loooong time before deciding we should maybe try to get some rest since it obviously looked like it was going to be a long night. We dozed off and on and at about 2:00 my contractions went from 8 minutes apart to 3 minutes apart in an instant. They checked and found me to be only 5 cm dilated. By this point I was in intense pain and all dreams of natural childbirth were chucked out the window after I heard I still had 5 cm to go. The on-call doctor (who was not one of my doctors since all 3 of mine were out of town on the same weekend) decided to start pitocin to help me along. The nurse (whose name was Sonya and was fantastic) got an IV in me but before she could start the pitocin we realized I was making progress on my own...pretty quickly. I begged and begged for the epidural and between 4:30 and 5:00 finally received it. The woman who gave me the epidural poked me 3 times before finding the right spot and got mad at me the first two times I jumped. I wanted to yell at her that if she would get it in the right spot I wouldn't be jumping since I wouldn't feel like a knife was cutting down my leg. I will admit I was pretty mean prior to the epidural and I have a great husband for choosing to love me and stay with me after some of the things I said to him. After the epidural I resumed my old self and was able to relax a bit and even doze on and off again. Around 6:00 I asked them to check me because I was feeling lots of pressure (the epidural only took away the horrible pain; I could still feel the pushing area and my legs) and like I had to use the bathroom. They found me at 9cm and started getting stuff ready. At 6:30 I said, "I really have to use the bathroom or push or whatever this feeling is." The doctor told me to start pushing if I felt like it and after about 15 minutes, Ellie was in my arms. The doctor was certain I wasn't going to tear but then at the last moment Ellie decided to shove her arm out with her head and stretched me out a good deal, tearing me in the process. The good news is that it was along my scar line from where I tore with Noah, so since there are no nerve endings there anymore I am not in the pain I was after the first time around with Noah.


In relation to Noah's labor, Ellie's was a good deal shorter (only 9 hours start to finish instead of 21) however I would consider it more painful since it progressed so fast and went from la-dee-da to intense pain in a minute.

Shortly after the delivery I started developing a severe headache. The thought was that it was a spinal headache from the problems with the epidural and I was started on all sorts of medications and pain relievers. This made me drowsy to the point of falling asleep during conversations with visitors. I feel like a total goofball looking back on Saturday and remembering talking to Christina, then opening my eyes a moment later with her still staring at me expectantly. "I was talking wasn't I?" I asked. She just nodded and was very understanding. Sunday the on-call doctor decided it wasn't a spinal but just tense muscles and took me off everything but gave me a muscle relaxer. Although I felt a little better, I still had a good deal of pain in my head even though my neck was feeling looser.


Monday morning I awoke and as I got up to use the bathroom I fell back on the bed and started sobbing. The pain was so severe and intense I thought I was going to black out. I had to rest my head between Tim's shoulderblades as he led me to the bathroom. I cried as I went to the bathroom and sobbed as I sat in the bathtub with Tim washing my hair and helping me out of the tub and into my clothes. My nurse came in as I was getting back into bed in tears and ran out to get me more pain relief. A couple hours later we managed to check out with me feeling a little better after the medicine kicked in.


That night I got a call from my doctor (who was finally back) telling me that the pathology lab had found inflammation around the placenta, which can be a sign of impending infection and Tim was off to the pharmacy to pick up antibiotics. She mentioned that if I had the headache still in the morning then I was to go to the ER and have a blood patch done because she didn't think it was tense muscles like the other doctor did.


I woke up with the headache at its worst and after Tim's brother, Randy, came over to watch Noah we were off with Ellie to the ER. That is where we have spent most of today. They pumped 3 bags of fluids in me and gave me a blood patch. A blood patch is what they do for a spinal headache, which I guess I did end up having as a result of the bad epidural experience. They took blood from my arm and then put it into my back in the spot where my epidural was. This blood then clots up in the spot where the hole is that is leaking the spinal fluid, closing it up. Not a pleasant experience, but it seems to have worked as I am not having pain anymore.

**Update on Wednesday** The headache was back again this morning, though not as severe, so it must not have been spinal related or the clot was knocked loose at some point in the night. We are now just asking for prayers that it goes away quickly and we can know how to combat it.

Now for the fun stuff: pictures!Getting ready to walk the halls in the fashionable birthing unit gown.

Noah holding his little sister for the first time. Although he is giving us attitude, he absolutely adores her.Noah with his friends, Leighton and Maddie, while their family was visiting us on Sunday.
We're still working on a family picture.

A proud and exhausted dad, mom and daughter.