She's Finally Here!

Harlow Emi Hafen

Born on April 3, 2010

at 7:52 a.m.

6 lbs. 14 oz.

20 - 1/4 inches

Harlow Emi Hafen is finally here, and only 7 days late!

On Friday April 2, 2010 Pete and I went to Clovis Community Hospital after my Dr. told me she had scheduled for me to be induced. I was definetly nervous to be induced. You can never really know how you body will react to a medication. I didnt like the idea of being given a medication to force my body to do something that it should do naturally but I was also SO ready to have this little baby out already!

We got to the Hospital at 6pm and checked in and was given a room almost immediately. It took them a couple of hours to get everything ready to go before they finally gave me the pitocin. By 8pm they gave me my first dose and almost immediatley I was contracting. I did think that I was already contracting on my own before we even got to the hospital but they definetly werent consistent. After a couple of hours the pain got a little more intense. but not something I couldnt handle. My parents came to visit and so did Pete's mom and family. Ali, Meridith and Andrea also came down to see me and wait it out in the waiting room for awhile. They are crazy! I dont think I would have stayed for as long as they did. It was a long wait.

Finally I was starting to dilate and make some real progress. But thats when my contractions got really intense and I asked for an epidural. Once that was done things went a little more smoothly and with a little more speed. When I was about 5 cm dilated they decided to help speed things along by breaking my water. But the next couple of hours were slow to progress. It took me almost 4 hours to go from 6-7cm. During this time the nurse kept coming in to check on the baby's heart rate. She finally told us that it looked like the baby's heart rate dropped everytime that I had a contraction. They thought that maybe the issue was that the baby was on the umbilical cord and when I contracted, it put too much pressure on it. The baby's heart rate recovered each time the contractions stopped but there was an intense 4 minutes when the heart rate didnt pick back up and stayed under 100. This made things a little more scary for us and for the doctors. They eventually tried to pump warm water back into me so that it could take the pressure off of the umbilical cord, but I dont think that it worked as well as they were hoping for.

So finally after hours or waiting and no progress happening, the Doctor came in and discussed our options. One we could wait it out and keep trying to dilate to 10cm with no gaurantee that we would actually get there and then have to go to a c-section last minute or two, we could just go with a c-section now and ensure that the baby was safe and that I was safe. We chose option 2 only because I really felt like something worse could happen the longer we waited and I would rather be safer than sorry later.

They had the epidural guy come back in, it was different one from the first time because of the shift change in the middle of the night. Because I had already had an epidural and some other sort of medicine for the back labor (Yes, back labor, like everything you hear about it, is true. its NOT fun!) The epidural seemed to do something funny to my left side. They think that it was slightly more to my left than my right side because all through the labor process I couldnt feel my left leg as much as my right leg. there was a huge difference. I could wiggle all my toes and move my legs myself on the right side, but on the left leg it was like dead to the world. This created a problem for the epidural guy who wanted to make sure I was ready to go into a c-section and not be able to feel any pain. WELL... he finally decided that I shouldnt go into the OR with some much feeling on my right side and that they should remove the epidural and instead put in a Spinal.

They prepped me and got ready to take me to the OR and put the spinal in. In this process Pete had to wait outside of the OR until they were ready to deliver. I'm hugely afraid of needles and by this time this was like the 5th one of the night and the 2nd one in my back. I was very emotional about the well being of the baby and the fact that I was going to have emergency surgery. It was all a little overwhelming and I really felt like I was going to be sick but it never happened. The nurses in the OR were awesome at telling me exactly what was going to happen and when it was happening. When it was time for the guy to put in the Spinal he prepped me on the effects and what it would feel like. He said I would be numb from the chest down, that FREAKED me out, and so I asked him if I would be able to still feel my arms and hands and be able to use them, he said yes. He also told me that most people who have a spinal before a C-Section say that it feels like they arent breathing because you are so numb from the chest down that you cant feel the rise and fall or your chest or the reaction your body has when you breathe. So he gave me the spinal and almost immediatley i felt the numbing in my body and had to have the nurses hold me on the table so that I didnt fall since I couldnt control my body anymore.

It was really scary because just like he said, he said it would feel like I wasnt breathing. and it really did feel like that, I was freaking out, i really felt like i couldnt breathe. But he had me keep looking at the monitor to see my heart rate and show me that it was staying stable. He said that if I could talk to them that meant that I was breathing and to keep talking to them. At first I could and then slowly it felt like I couldnt get words out of my mouth anymore and I couldnt feel a single part of my body. I could hear everything going on around me but couldnt keep my eyes open or feel anything, I couldnt squeeze the Doctors hand when he asked me to and then all of a sudden, the Nurses were yelling for a doctor to get in and somthing about respitory dificulty and it was like all fo the Nurses turned into ants and started scurrying around so fast and yelling. Finally they had Pete come in and sit down by my head. He kept talking me to me and i could hear him but couldnt answer him. I felt like i was outside of my body and had no control over it anymore. The epidural guy kept asking me if I just wanted to be put out for the whole thing, but that was one answer i could answer, i kept shaking my head. I was DONE with drugs! i didnt want anymore ever again.

the c-section seriously happened so fast. I could hear the Doctor say, time of incision 7:50, time of delivery 7:52 and then it was literally over. I could hear the baby cry immediately which was a huge relief. Pete went and cut the cord and came back. I could hear the Doctors cleaning her up and fixing me up and finally they brought her over to me. That was the first time through the whole operation that I forced my eyes open. They held her next to my head, she was perfect! and she had her eyes open so wide.

After the c-section my body was doing a let down from all of the medication and I was shaking uncontrollably. Finally when it got a little better, they brought me back to recover and I finally got to hold her. I'm sad that my first reaction to holding her was that I was too scared because I was so shaky I didnt want to drop her, but i'm so glad I got to hold her! I'd been waiting for so long to do that and to see her! She's really here! finally!

Though this delivery is nothing like i expected it to be and it didnt nearly go as smoothly as i had hoped, i am so overwhelmed with how glad that i am that she is here. FINALLY! it was worth every pain imaginable because now I have her.

THE BEST GIFT OF ALL IS THAT SHE WAS BORN ON DADDY'S BIRTHDAY. HARLOW AND PETE WILL ALWAYS SHARE THAT SPECIAL DAY. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY AND BABY!