The Gard Family: December 18, 2010 - The Happiest Day of Our Lives

December 18, 2010 was a day we thought we never come! We were anxious for our little girl to arrive but definitely not 100% prepared for the emotional and physical roller coaster it would be. As most of you know we were scheduled to be induced on Friday, December 17the, which was our due date. We got up at 3:30 a.m. that morning and call the hospital at 4:00 a.m. We were excited when they told us they had room to take us and we were on our way. We figure we get there at 5:00 a.m., be induced with Pitocin a short time later and have a baby by the end of the day. Little did we know were going to spend the next 38 hours in Labor and Delivery and end up staying in the hospital for 4 days. Below is a condensed timeline of Miss Kennedy's birth. Be prepared: it's a long, long story!

Friday, December 17, 2010
3:30 a.m. - We get up and get ready to go to the hospital. Melissa does her hair and makeup in hopes of having pretty postpartum pictures :-)

4:00 a.m. - Call hospital, they can take us!

5:00 a.m. - Check into Triage at hospital, get settle into room and ready to do a "natural", epideral-free delivery (boy was Melissa delusion!). Nurse comes to check Melissa for dilation. To our disappointment she was still only 1 cm dilated. Dr. told us we could start the Pitocin until Melissa was at least 3 cm dilated.

7:00 a.m. Dr. started Melissa on Cervidil to thin the cervix and encourage dilation. Unfortunately, this medication takes 12 hours to work. They next 12 hours include mild contractions and exhaustion.

7:00 p.m. - Nurse examines Melissa to check her progress and finds that she is still only 1 cm dilated. At this time, the nurse says she will start Melissa on a Prostaglandin Gel in hopes of getting things moving but wants Melissa to eat a good dinner, shower and rest before they start. The gel will take a total of 3 hours to work with 1 hour of lying down, 1 hour of walking continuously, and 1 hour of lying down again. Michael tries to get some sleep on the terribly uncomfortable fold out coach in the delivery room. It's a long shot but Melissa and Michael are still hopeful of having Miss Kennedy that night.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

12:30 a.m.- Nurse comes into check Melissa and she is still only 1 cm dilated. Melissa has a mini breakdown at the lack of progress. The nurse suggests taking an ambien and sleeping a bit suggesting that just relaxing can help the gel and create dilation. Melissa takes the Ambien and sleeps for 4 hours. Poor Michael is still sleeping on the uncomfortable fold out coach.

6:30 a.m. Nurse comes in to check Melissa and she's 3cm dilated! Finally success! Melissa is finally able to start the Pitocin drip.

7:00 a.m. - Pitocin drip started. Michael and Melissa are hoping the progress continues!

8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m - Melissa has mild to moderate contraction every minute but nothing painful enough to ask for an epideral. Nurse comes into check Melissa and there is no change. She is still only 3 cm dilated. The Dr. comes in and the decision is made to go ahead and break Melissa's water in order to speed up the process.

12:30 p.m. - Dr. breaks Melissa's water and the contracts start coming every 20 seconds with an extreme level of strength. At this point, Melissa demands and epideral. She quickly lets go of the "natural delivery" idea!

1:00 p.m. - Anesthesiologist comes in to give the epideral. Melissa's contracts are so strong and so close together that it take him double the amount of time to insert the epideral. When he was finished, Melissa couldn't feel anything :-)

1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. - Nurse and Dr. check Melissa numerous times. Contractions are severe and too close together and the baby doesn't have enough time to recovery. Kennedy's heart rate and oxygen drop and rebound with each contraction. They scale back the Pitocin in hope to space out the contractions. Every hour Melissa is checked with no progress, still only 3 cm dilated. At 4:30 p.m., the doctor came in a check again and began to discuss the likely possibility of having a c-section. Kennedy wasn't in extreme distress but was getting there. He said he would check again in an hour and then decide if we were gonna proceed with the c-section.

5:30 p.m. - Doctor came in to check dilation and determined that Melissa was at almost 4 cm. With the progress he didn't want to do a c-section just yet. He was going to let Melissa keep going with close monitoring of the baby. The next Dr. on shift was his wife and she would check me again in an hour and make the finally determination.

7:15 p.m. - Dr. comes in to check Melissa. Before she exams her, she goes over the good possibility of a c-section and all the risks involved. She then exams Melissa and determines that Miss Kennedy in coming right now! Melissa went from 4 cm to 10 cm in and hour. Kennedy was coming now and fast!

7:15 p.m. -7:30 p.m. - Dr. and nurses got setup and we got ready to push. 9 pushes later, Kennedy was here with Charlie Brown's Christmas playing in the background :-) At 9 lbs 1oz and 19 inches long (pediatrician later said she was really 20 inches!) Miss Kennedy was perfect and healthy!

Melissa and Kennedy spent the next 2 nights in the hospital to recovery and get checked. On Monday, December 20, 2010 we came home and got our first dose of parenting. It's been unbelievably awesome! We are exhausted but so happy to have our baby girl here!