One Week Old

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:13:00 -0600

Callie is one week old, as of last night. It has been quite the learning experience for Scott and I between diapers, feedings, and everything else.

I've been promising pictures for a while, so here they are:

First picture is Callie, just after she was cleaned up at the hospital. The second is her being held by her proud daddy. :)

So, before I get into the nitty-gritty details, here are the important details about Callie's birth. She was 8 lbs at birth, and 19.5 inches long. She was born at 9:58 pm on Saturday, November 28, 2009. And, she's cute as a button... :)

Those of you who aren't interested in the nitty-gritty details of labor and delivery can (and probably should) stop reading at this point. :)

Labor was a bit long for me. I started labor at 9pm on Friday, and things progressed rather slowly. I was already at the hospital at that point, prepping for induction the following morning, so at least I didn't have to worry about when to go in, or any of that. Friday night, I wasn't able to sleep at all, which made Saturday very long. I had pretty bad pain in my back whenever I had a contraction, and Scott's help in providing some pressure on my lower back was immensely helpful, both at this early point in labor and throughout the entire process.

My parents and my husband were all very supportive and spent Saturday with me, keeping me company and helping me deal with the contractions. This was particularly helpful toward Saturday afternoon, when things became much more rough. My dad knew all the tricks to help make things a bit more comfortable, like putting a wet washcloth on my forehead, and sticking ice chips inside the wet washcloth.

During transition, due to a number of issues that were going on, I became extremely tense, which made the contractions much harder to deal with. In addition, we came very close to needing an emergency c-section due to complications that ended up resolving themselves. Part-way through this time, I decided that I didn't want to handle the pain any further, and I got an epidural. The epidural was a very good thing, and made the last few hours pass much more easily.

After eventually making it through transition (which took a long time and involved adding some pitocin to keep things moving), the pushing stage was actually quite a relief. In a lot of ways, I think the pushing stage was the least problematic stage for me. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that I was on an epidural for the entirety of it :), but also, it was nice to actually feel like I had some control and could do something to move the labor along.

The first two hours of pushing went well, and Callie was progressing reasonably. My epidural had been very well applied, and I still had full control of my legs, so I was able to try a variety of different positions for pushing, some of which are not normally options after an epidural. However, for the third hour of pushing, I was not able to make any progress. My doctor checked on things, and discovered that Callie wasn't able to get her head under one of my bones.

At this point, we decided to move forward with a c-section, as continuing to push did not appear to be productive, and would only cause further difficulties and bruising for Callie. The c-section was quick and painless (although there's a bit of a wizard-of-oz \\\"don't look behind the curtain\\\" feel to it), and I was just happy to see Callie come out healthy and well at the end.

It was a crazy 25 hours to get Callie out, but I have to say that the moment I heard her cry, every second of it was worthwhile.

Major Site Renovation!

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:14:00 -0600

Well, I'm finally renovating this site. Our family will be growing soon, and it's time for us to have a site that better fits our needs as a family. So, instead of TuxGirl.com, we now have McNewFamily.net. I should be able to do a better job of keeping this site up-to-date as well, so keep your eyes open for updates (or subscribe to our RSS feed here.