Sunday, September 16 - Baby Julia Born (Day 1)

Shortly after midnight, our plans changed. I had a contraction around 12:30 and I had to call the nurse because during that contraction, my water broke. I had high amniotic fluid levels which was part of my being uncomfortable and when my water broke, I instantly felt my skin relax. They checked me again and I was dilated to 4 cm and the baby had dropped significantly. Contractions came on quite a bit harder and faster almost immediately and they started prepping for delivery. I asked for an epidural so we started that process. They had to push a bag of IV fluid through before I could get the epidural and of course my IV blew. They switched it out and it actually went in much better that time. I had to get my blood drawn again to make sure my platelets hadn't dropped too much (I had found out earlier if they dropped too much, I wasn't going to be able to get an epidural- not good news to someone beginning labor who wants an epidural). Luckily, my platelets were staying somewhat consistent so I was able to get the epidural. I had gotten a sudden headache during labor, I at one point just said, my head is going to explode. My blood pressure was still high so they were a little concerned. By the time the epidural was in, it was probably about 2:45. I was having pretty painful contractions and they were coming pretty fast. I finally got laid down and was getting some relief from the epidural and within about 5 minutes, I said I was starting to feel some pressure that I needed to push before long. They checked me again and I was to a 10 and pretty much ready to push. I pushed through 3 contractions with just my nurse in the room and then she had me stop and wait for the doctor to arrive.

The room started filling up with the doctor for me, nurses for me, the NICU doctor, NICU nurse practitioner and 3 or 4 NICU nurses. Once the doctor came in and got ready, I pushed through one full contraction and then started out pushing through the second contraction until the baby's head was out and the doctor said to stop pushing. Once the baby's head was out, the doctor basically pulled the baby out the rest of the way to be able to control the umbilical cord and omphalocele a little more. The baby came out crying and looked pretty good. Eric announced that it was a girl! Julia Marie Shook was born at 3:08 am. They put her on me right away and Eric was able to cut the umbilical cord (about 12 inches away from her belly). We reminded to doctors to clamp really high for her cord, because the surgeon told us that the number one complication related to an omphalocele is that the doctors accidentally clamp too close and could clamp/cut part of her bowel that is inside the umbilical cord. Shortly after delivery, they took her over to the warming bed and the NICU team looked her over. She got 8 out of 9 and 9 out of 9 for her APGAR scores. She looked good to the NICU team and they got her all wrapped up. The on-call NICU doctor (neonatologist) said it definitely looked like an omphalocele to him. We were then able to hold her for probably 20 minutes between the two of us. This was exciting because we weren't sure if we would be able to hold her right away, and if we could hold her it would only be for a few minutes. While we were holding her the NICU team looked very relaxed, which we took as a good sign. They took her to the NICU and Eric was able to go along, which again was exciting because we were told that Eric would need to stay out of NICU for about an hour while they ran assessments.

 We will continue adding to the posts today and tomorrow, which will now include pictures of Julia so keep checking back. For now here is a family picture with Sara, Eric, and Julia.