Birth, Prayers and Many Thanks!

(Kailie's first time in carseat) (First bath at home)

This is Gina again, many thanks to Jared for posting while I have been in my delirous state this past week. It has already been one week since little Kailie came to us and I just wanted to share a little about the birth seeing as in my post "Ready or not here she comes" I explained how scared I was of birth.

(leaving the hospital Tuesday night)

The Birth:
It wasn't as bad as I thought and there were even some great surprises. The first surprise was that I still got to be delivered by the mid-wives which was awesome. I had two, Sandy who was with me all Saturday and Dana who was there all night and then for the birth they were both there because I delivered right at shift change.
One of my many concerns was that the baby and my body were not ready for this all of the sudden delivery and the mid-wives felt the same way which is why they wanted to take everything really slow which was great for the baby but not so great for me. They both thought that for sure she would not come until Sunday afternoon or evening so I was in for a 24-48 hour labor. I didn't end up doing it completly natural although nothing of that delivery was natural. I made it 15 hours without any pain relief and next time hopefully I won't have to be induced and things will go along much quicker. I actually look back and think that it was a pretty joyous experience. The two midwives that I worked with were amazing and I am so grateful to them and the 2 nurses that attended me were wonderful and so attentive and then of course there was Jared. He was so great and supportive. The only pain that I had was in my back and every contraction which was pretty much every 2 min. or less I would hit him so he would know to start massaging my lower back.
At about midnight, I decided that continuing with out relief would not be beneficial to me or Jared because the midwives and the nurses thought for sure I wouldn't deliver until late Sunday evening so they wanted me to get some sleep (hence the benadryl). That is when I decided to get an epidural which was put in wrong and went up my body instead of down, therefore my chest and arms were numb but not my lower body. If I hadn't been so out of it thanks to the benadryl I would have probably freaked out since my main concern with getting an epidural was being numb. At 1 am Kailie's heartrate dropped and they told us they were probably going to have to do a c-section.

As I lay there that night I thought about all the people I had talked to since I was put on bedrest and how every single person told me that they were praying for me and the baby and some even fasted in our behalf. . At this point my epidural was turned off since it went to the wrong spot and I was preparing myself for the c-section, I thought about those prayers and how at that moment I could feel the power of the prayers of the people in my behalf. I knew that everything was going to be okay and that the baby would come out healthy and strong because of the faith and belief of all those around me.
At this time I just want to THANK all of you for praying for me and Kailie, your prayers were answered and they definitely helped me make it through that scary time.
At 5:30 her heart rate was steady that they started the pitocin and the epidural again and then SURPRISE she came. I was laying there and all of the sudden felt something big moving down and I told the nurse "um I think the baby is coming out" she of course was like yea right let me check and sure enough she was on her way. 21 hours later she was finally here.
I know that her coming so fast was also thanks to the all the prayers. When everyone expected it to be a long time she came and without any complications. Although I had an epidural, I could still feel everything, which was very important to me.

(Kailie being fed by syringe to make sure she eats enough)

I just wanted you all to know that your prayers worked, I honestly truly felt them and am so grateful to everyone for the love and support you have offered us this past few weeks.
We are so happy to have little Kailie here with us, she is beautiful (even though she looks just like her daddy :), she is healthy and she is such a good baby!