He is here!!!!!!!!!!

A lot has happened in the last 10 days. The biggest being Noah Rico made his arrival. Noah was born by emergency c-section on January 23, 2006 at 9:54am weighing 7 pounds 5.5 ounces and 20 inches long. Here is Noah's birth story:)

January 23, 2006

4:00am I woke up to pee again. Something didn't feel quite right. I can't explain it. I didn't feel sick or anything, I didn't have any pain I just didn't feel quite right. No snow yet.

4:30am I woke up to pee....again.

5:00am Jay's alarm went off. I was still awake. I was feeling menstrual-like cramping (which I now know were contractions). They weren't too bad and I was trying to go back to sleep. I had a busy day ahead of me since it was the last day before I became a mom. The snow has started to fall.

5:30am The contractions were getting stronger but I continued to tell myself it was nothing. There was no way I was in labor...lol. Jay left for work and I didn't tell him what was going on. He had joked last night that I should call him around 11am and tell him I was in labor so he could leave work early.....little did he know he was about to get his wish. The snow is starting to accumulate.

6:00am With every contraction I had to pee so I must have gotten up about 15 times since 4:00am. I am beginning to think I might be in labor. I tried to call Ali and Tennille to find out what contractions feel like. Neither one answers.

6:30am I called my parents hoping to talk to my mom. My dad answers and I talked to him for a few minutes and he joked about it being my last day before I became a parent. I told him I was not so sure that I was going to make it until Tuesday, that I was having contractions. He asked if I wanted to speak to mom. Mom got on the phone and I had 2 strong contractions in about 8 minutes. She suggested I call the doctor.

6:45am I put a call into the answering service that I thought I was in labor. They were putting a call in to the doctor.

6:50 I call Jay at work. The phone rings for what seems like 500 times before they answer. I tell Jay he may have gotten his wish. I was in labor. He responded by saying "Really???" Its really snowing good now.

6:55am The doctor calls after what seemed like an eternity. Well actually the doctor's daughter calls to tell me to hold on a minute. Just our luck it was the "halfwit" on call. He proceeds to tell me he is on his way to take is daughter to work and he would have someone call as soon as the office opened. He said about a half hour. They would make the decision as to whether I should go to the office or right to the hospital. I was in a lot of pain at this point and just wanted to get to the hospital. The roads were getting bad.

7:15am The appointment secretary from the doctors office called and said to sit tight they were calling Labor and Delivery to set up a time to do the c-section today instead of tomorrow. Oh my god this is gonna happen today!!!

7:20am I call Jay at work again it seemed to ring 500 times. Lorraine, a very sweet woman Jay works with tries to carry on a conversation with me to find out how I am doing. I can no longer talk through the contractions. Jay finally gets to the phone and I tell him it is time to come home.

7:30 The doctors office finally calls back. I need to get to the hospital ASAP. The on-call doctor at the hospital has another procedure at 11am so they need to get the c-section done before that.

8:00am Jay finally gets home. The roads are getting very bad. We run around the house trying to make sure we get everything we are going to need. Jay can come home later and get anything we forgot.

8:30am We finally get to the hospital. Its real fun trying to breath through a contraction with your seatbelt on. We pull up in front of the hospital Jay throws the car in park and runs to help me out of the car. Thank Goodness for Valet parking:) We go up to L & D and they put me in room 1 and I changed my clothes. The Nurse came in and hooked us up to the monitors, I was definitely having strong contractions and Noah's heart rate was good. The anesthesiologist was called and the Nurse tried to put in an IV. She couldn't get the IV in no matter how hard she tries and believe me she tried. The IV team was called in. In the mean time the doctor came in to check on things. While she was there I had a very strong contraction. The doctor decided to check my cervix....9 centimeters and -2 station.....and I thought I wasn't in labor....LOL. The OB decided to call the Neurologist and see if he thought we could deliver vaginally. That's when I got scared. While she was checking with the Neurologist the anesthesiologist came. They gave me my epidural and the IV finally got a line in. The anesthesiologist said the epidural would take 5 or 10 minutes to work but I never felt another contraction.




9:00am The OB came in and said the Neurologist said we could deliver vaginally if I felt up to it. Thanks to the epidural I felt like I could do it. So the plan was to let me labor a few more hours and let my body do most of the work so all I had to do was rest and then in a few hours deliver Noah. Unfortunately Noah had other plans. Once I got the epidural his heart rate started to drop...his heart rate would come right back up but the doctor didn't want to let that keep happening. So we went from being a scheduled c-section to a vaginal delivery to an emergency c-section in a matter of a few minutes.

The rest of the morning is a whirlwind of activity and I am kind of fuzzy on what happened next. I know they helped Jay get changed and whisked me into an OR. The only other thing I can remember was the incisions and birth. I only remember because they repeated the times over and over.
9:52 Skin incision
9:53 Uterine Incision

9:54 Noah was born

He let out the most beautiful cries:) As soon as he let out his first cry Jay and I immediately cried. Noah's first APGAR score at 1 minute old was a 9...good for even a baby born to a healthy mom. His second APGAR score at 5 minutes old was 10...a perfect score:) Jay got to cut the umbilical cord. They cleaned Noah up and let me kiss him them whisked him off to the NICU. Although we knew this was going to happen and I told Jay to go with him. I was so sad I couldn't hold my baby. Stay tuned for our first few days getting to know each other!