Guess Who's Finally Here!! Introducing...Emma Kathryn!!

Hi Everyone!!

First, thank you so much for so many emails and posts about hoping we are doing well! Sorry for the late update, but as you probably guessed, little Emma Kathryn has arrived!! Since this post is coming pretty late, I decided to post Emma's Birth Story below, and then create another post to let you know how our first few days as parents have been!

Emma Kathryn Odom arrived Saturday morning, June 27th 2009 at 10:31AM and was a whopping 5 lbs 12.6 ozs and 19 inches long. She is our tiny little baby!! I ended up working from home on Friday, June 26th simply because I was exhausted and didn't have any meetings that day. After a quick shower in the morning, I realized exactly how exhausted I was (much more so then normal) and ended up just overall not feeling so well. I actually went back to bed and slept for another couple of hours. In the afternoon, I started to get a little worried because I hadn't noticed Emma moving very much that day, so I made a quick phone call to the doctor's about 3:00PM and to my surprise, they told me to go directly to Labor and Delivery! This completely threw me for a loop as I was expecting them to have me come into the office to check the heartbeat. Well, I immediately burst into tears, called Wes, who was at work in Washington and told him to head to the hospital. My next call was to my mom who drove up and met me at the house, grabbed my bags and drove me to the hospital. After my initial freak-out, I ended up calming down and really thinking that it was no big deal and that I would be home in a couple of hours. Boy was I wrong!!

When we got to Labor and Delivery the nurses didn't seem too concerned so mom and I thought that there wasn't anything wrong. Eventually, we got sent back to an exam room and I was hooked up to some monitors to check the heartbeat and to see if I was having any contractions (and just didn't know it). The heartbeat was nice and strong and of course Emma then starting to move all over the place haha. The little stinker. So Emma was checked out and was happy and healthy but my blood pressure was really high, much higher then it had been at any of my previous doctors appointments. The nurse took some blood and urine to test and told us it would be about a 45 minute wait. During the wait, they continued to take my blood pressure which eventually decreased a little, but was still high considering what it had been at my doctors appointments. To top it off, they found some protein in my urine (probably TMI...sorry) but those two things together, weren't good signs. So when my doctor came in the room and checked out all the results, he said it was time to have a baby and that we were going to be induced! Insert next freak out moment!!

The plan was to get checked in and insert Cervidil to help my cervix start to thin out and get prepared for labor. Then we would start Pitocin the next morning, thinking we wouldn't have much to do until then, and that Emma might arrive sometime Saturday evening. The Cervidil was inserted about 6:30PM on Friday night and by 7:00PM I started to feel contractions! So we knew it was working! But by about 9:30PM I was REALLY feeling some pain thinking this was going to be a long night...and it certainly was. Looking back, Friday night was definitely the hardest part of the entire process! About 2:30AM I couldn't take much more and was really disappointed to hear when the doctor checked me that I was still only about 1 cm dilated (which I was a week before). They ended up taking out the Cervidil since I was a little too sensitive to it and I continued to contract until things really started moving at 7:00AM on Saturday morning.

There wasn't much of a wake up...pretty much the doctor came in the room with two nurses, flipped the lights on and started getting things rolling. I was now about 3 cm dilated. Dr. P didn't want to start the Pitocin until I got the epidural (THANK GOODNESS) and since I was finally 3 cm, I could get it ASAP! About 7:45 or so the pain relief came!! AAhhhhh..... Wes and I could finally get some sleep. At that time, they also broke my water. At 9:00AM I was still 3 cm dilated but that wasn't going to last long because that's when the Pitocin was started. About 9:30AM the doctors and nurses started rushing in the room because Emma's heart rate was dropping during contractions. At one point, it even dropped in the 50s! After switching positions a few times with no luck, the doctor decided to check me to see how I was progressing. At this point, I was preparing myself for an emergency C-Section but to our surprise...I was 9 cm!!! Holy Moly!! My parents were supposed to come by that morning so I immediately said to Wes "You better call my mom and dad!!!!" Luckily, they were close by because it would only be another few minutes before I started pushing!

By the time the nurses and the room was prepped...it was about 10:15AM and time to push! After about 15 minutes and 12 pushes...Emma Kathryn was born!! It was absolutely amazing and although somewhat scary at times, a life changing experience. The hardest part was definitely Friday night....Saturday was almost a breeze! It went by so fast and I really didn't have any pain (at least not until the Epidural wore off and then....ouch!) I will never forget first seeing Emma and the look on Wes's face when she was born. Wes was absolutely amazing throughout the entire thing, helping me through each contraction and encouraging me through each push and he continues to be amazing now that we are home and trying to recover.

Emma is doing great, she is completely adorable but then again I am probably a little biased. :)