She's here

I am finally announcing the arrival of Carly Barbara Merrill. She FINALLY (after 36 hrs of labor) made her appearance Friday, March 21, 2008 at 12:10pm. She weighed 5 lbs, 3 oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

It was a LONG 2 day process to have this tiny little baby. I had an amniocentesis wednesday morning to check her lung development. Around 6pm we heard from the doctor. Her lungs weren't quite as developed as they would like but enough for a safe delivery. I was admitted to the hospital around 8:30pm that night. Around 12:30am they started the cervadyl which would take 12 hours to completely work. I started out dialated at a 1 and only 50% effaced. I was told that cervadyl may or may not induce labor so we would have to assess the pain situation as it came. It induced labor on me about 4 hours after starting it. They started giving me pain medication through my IV (which took 2 infultrated veins followed by the nurse anesthetist placing) and I was finally starting to feel comfortable. After the 12 hours was up I was dialated to a 3 and 60% effaced, not much progress but having strong contractions. They started the pitocin at 12:30pm and I had my first...yes that's right...first epidural around 2pm. Full relief finally, which didn't last very long. Don't know the times but the epidural started to quit working in the late evening. I wasn't progressing and they kept upping my pitocin. I sent Thad home to sleep around 4am and my mom stayed with me. During that time the anesthesiologist tried to get my epidural to work by moving it and giving more medication, all through 100+ registering contractions. After injecting major amounts of medication with no results they finally pulled that epidural and placed the second one. Finally I had relief again! I was finally dialated to a 6 around 8am so I called Thad back. He arrived at the hospital around 9:30am, just when I started to feel pain in the left side again. Just like the last time the pain spread from my left back to left front and then to the right side. They added more medication again with no relief. I finally yelled and screamed long enough to warrant a visit from my Dr. He was just going into surgery but would be out in 1 1/2 hrs and we would discuss my options then. During that time I was given a very strong drug to knock me out so I wouldn't feel the pain. Any guesses...that lasted about 30 minutes. My doctor came back to my room and decided that we were going to do an emergency c-section. (I don't know if my sobbing in pain prompted that or the fact that nearly 36 hours had gone by and I was extremely exhausted and didn't have the energy to be able to push if that time would EVER come!!!) I don't remember much after that. Getting wheeled into the delivery room, getting a spinal block, asking for my glasses to see the baby (the second dose of the knock out medicine kicked in and I never even saw her), waking up to being stitched and stapled, and moving from the operating table to the bed is about all I remember. I was finally released on wednesday, one week after I was admitted. Oh, I was released with a raging UTI...what fun! To make a long story short, epidurals and pain medication don't work on me!

Getting ready to go inside to have the baby

Thursday March 20- eating breakfast, no epidural yet.....

Carly's first picture

This is the first time I saw Carly, 4 hours after her birth. She was immediately intubated after birth and was placed on CPAP (she was breating on her own, it was just assisting her so she didn't have to work so hard). She had a brain ultrasound after birth and things weren't looking very good. We spoke to the Dr's and at that time the prognosis was indefinite brain damage, possible unknown syndromes and severe hydrocephalus. Things have gotten better as time has gone on. During the following days they removed the tubes and treated her for severe jaundice. She had a brain MRI on monday which confirmed aqueductal stenosis. She will have a shunt placed, we are just waiting for her to show symptoms. Her brain swelling has gone down considerably and in the words of the Dr's "A 90% completely different baby than the one born 3 days earlier." She is doing very well and is finally home. We got to take her home 1 week after she was born! I love having her home although I'm not sleeping much.

She is such a blessing to our family. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much, she should not be doing this well. I don't know how I lived my life without her. She has big beautiful navy blue eyes and looks at me like she has known me for forever. I see her smile and I know she is communicating with her Nana B, probably laughing with eachother at some inside joke they have. I am forever indebted to her Nana for watching over her.

I now have a baby that is hungry so I must finish but I will post more pictures as she allows me the time.