Eva's Story

Little Evelyn Kate entered this world on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 2:53 pm. This is her story.

Tuesday morning I woke up at three with contractions. I tried to completely ignore them because the last seven or eight nights have all been the same story. Wake up with contractions, realize they are exactly five or seven minutes apart, time them for a few hours and then suddenly have them stop... I just wanted to get some sleep. These contractions, however, slowly began to get stronger. I decided to wait until Logan woke up to tell him (I wanted him to at lest be able to sleep).

We woke up at our normal time and instead of going off to school and the gym like we normally do we were off to the hospital. Upon arrival, my contractions decided to stop (I am glad I went to the childbirth classes because I found out that this is a normal occurrence).

...I have decided that when our kids have babies they will laugh at the ridiculous equipment that we used. More specifically, the crazy wires and straps that are used to monitor the baby's heart rate and the contractions. The nurses strapped me up to this lovely machine to check on the baby and me. A normal baby heart rate is about 125 to 150 beats minute, but while the nurse was monitoring me the baby's heart rate dropped to 65. The nurse became worried and quickly got orders to start me on pitocin to hurry up the delivery.

The pitocin worked quickly and soon the contractions were pretty consistent and about 3 minutes apart. Eva started to struggle when the contractions came closer together. The doctor ordered the pitocin to stop because she wasn't handling it well and she came in and broke my bag of waters to hurry up the labor. A short time later the doctor ordered my epidural just in case a C-section was necessary.

Dr. Shagauat was a very wonderful doctor. Her C-section rate is the lowest in the entire hospital. She promised me that she believed in doing everything possible to avoid a C-section. I knew I was in good hands.

Eva's heart rate dropped again soon after the epidural was given. The doctor rushed in and said that it looked like we would have a C-section. It was at this point that I lost it. I was having a difficult time accepting the idea that this may be necessary. The doctor realized that I had just had an epidural and that a change in heart rate was normal. She decided to wait a little bit longer and monitor me carefully.

I would recommend an epidural to anyone... I was extremely relaxed and very happy.

Eva started struggling again about an hour and a half later. Her heart rate dropped and the doctor and nurses could not bring it back up. Dr. Shagauat then called an emergency C-section and suddenly I was surrounded by eight new faces. Someone threw scrubs at Logan and told him to follow us as soon as he dressed, and then we were off! The doctors practically ran down the hall to the operating room and then it began. I have never seen such organized chaos. I had someone cleaning my stomach, attaching all kinds of monitors, putting medication in my epidural, adding something to my i.v., throwing up a curtain to block my view, and scrubbing up.

Less than five minutes after entering, the doctor announced that she was making the incision. I was very calm about the decision to have a C-section and I felt comfortable with it. I am relieved that I had an hour and a half to think about and accept that possibility. I believe that I would not have had a good experience if I had the C-section earlier. I have to say that even though I was calm, it was scary to have everything happen so fast. I could tell that it was a true emergency.

Evelyn Kate was born healthy and happy at 2:53 pm on Tuesday. We immediately knew why she was having problems with the contractions. The umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her neck, once around her lower body and in between her legs. Later, Logan told me her arms and legs were blue. Scary. I am glad I didn't know that at the time.

When I first heard her cry it seemed very surreal that she was my baby. Everything happened so fast and I took a quick minute to adjust. When they placed her in Logan's arms everything was perfect and my heart just melted. I don't regret having a C-section for one minute since it ensured Evelyn's healthy arrival.

When she came out we barely heard a peep out of her. She didn't cry at all, but she made enough noises for us to know that she was ok. The doctors and nurses all commented on how big her eyes were. For the next two hours she was wide awake and looking around at everything. Eva came out knowing exactly what she was supposed to do for breastfeeding. She took about two seconds to latch on perfectly and she was on each side for twenty minutes. She has been doing great ever since. Breastfeeding is something I have been very nervous about, but she knew exactly what to do and helped calm her mother's nerves. :)

Evelyn is a calm baby and she loves looking around at everything and at everybody. She is healthy and extremely happy.

Logan is going to download some pictures and post them below. Grandparents are asking for more and we are more than happy to provide them.

She looks like a troll doll in this one. All she needs now is big, colorful hair!

I was actually the first one who got to hold her. Lucky me!

You'll notice just a little bit of newborn rash on this one up on her cheek. She actually got it pretty bad on her back and tummy. The doctors say it doesn't irritate her, and it will go away soon.

She sleeps a lot, so we thought we'd represent that by putting a lot of pictures up of her sleeping. I will post more "awake" pictures later. Also, this is the first outfit she wore that was not from the hospital. I think you'll notice a lot more color in the pictures from here on out.