Aliyah Ann entered the world on Tuesday, October 27 at 12:22
p.m. weighing in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. As with Eli, since I was overdue, we had a
planned induction scheduled for Tuesday morning.
Here is her birth story:
On Monday night, Eli was dropped off at Gramary and Papa Ron's house
before we left for the hospital Tuesday morning. We arrived at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. the
next day. They started an IV with
Pitocin right away to get things going. After
about an hour, I could feel the contractions.
Over time, they started getting stronger and began coming more frequently. The order for the epidural went in before the
pain became even worse. Just like last
time, the epidural resulted in a one-sided block where my left side was numb
but I could still feel my right side.
This time, though, they attempted to maneuver the epidural catheter so
it would get into the right space in the spine to provide more complete pain
relief whereas last time they added in fentanyl through the IV, which made me
feel much more woozy and not as alert as I was this time. Even with this different approach of trying
to numb the right side, it still wasn't working and the contractions just kept
coming more frequently and were much more intense. Just as I was about to prepare myself to have
to push through the rest of the contractions with this pain, they checked and
realized I was ready at that time to start pushing. As soon as I turned from lying on my right
side to my back, the epidural finally started working and I had 100% pain
relief while pushing, which lasted only about 10 minutes. Overall, this labor was much shorter, around
5 hours compared to 18 hours last time with only a minimal amount of time spent
pushing compared to 3 hours of pushing last time. Aside from experiencing absolutely no pain
during the end, I was much more alert and felt calmer and can still hear the
sound in my mind of her very first cry.
During our hospital stay, Aliyah remained a very content
little baby girl. She had a lot of mucus
that had to be sucked out to clear her nose when she was first born and is
still a bit congested at times, but the nurse said this should resolve on its
own. She is a good little eater.
She started off taking an ounce of formula every 4 hours and just
recently started taking 2 ounces during a feeding.
She spent most of her time in the hospital sleeping and is still doing
so at home. The second night of our
stay, one of the nurses asked if they could use Aliyah as part of a baby bath
demonstration in their parenting class that night, so she was able to
participate in that.
We enjoyed all our visitors during our time in the hospital,
most especially big brother Eli. He just
adores her and has really exceeded my expectations in his big brother role as
he loves to help out and is very gentle with her and curious about all the
facets of the life of a newborn. He
shows a genuine concern and compassion for his little sister and really has a
big heart for her. We are happy to be
back at home and are settling in now as a family of four.
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