It's a Girl! (What a Day)

First things first - it's a girl! We welcomed little Talia Mae to the world today and we're ecstatic.

This past Friday afternoon proved to be the day that our lives changed permanently. While preparing dinner, Alysia exclaimed that her water just broke. After scrambling to find a few remaining items around the house to put into our hospital bag, we went straight to the hospital where they confirmed that her water did in fact break. Receiving that news initiated a very challenging 24 hours for Alysia...

The start of the night was somewhat typical as far as deliveries go - increasingly painful contractions, the occasional walk around the maternity ward, and even a bath. Alysia recieved 3 separate pain medications throughout the night, including an intrathecal injection at 1:30 AM followed by an epidural at 3:30 AM. By 6:00 AM, we collectively decided that Alysia was far enough along to try finishing the delivery. However, baby had other ideasas her head was too large to fit. So at 8:45 AM, Dr. Monticello decided to recommend a C-Section due to the risk of the baby's head or shoulders being too large for a natural delivery. This, of course, is what Alysia wanted to avoid because of the recovery time involved.

The C-Section proved to be an even more challenging experience when the surgeons found that the placenta wouldn't cleanly detach from the uterus. Without getting too technical, the surgeons had to coerce the placenta to come out, and in the process of doing so caused the uteran wall to bleed. This bleeding was significantly worse than they had expected, and Alysia was given two units of blood on the table and another unit afterwards since a small amount of bleeding continued after the operation. Because of the nature of the bleeding, they had to follow-up the operation with another non-invasive procedure to partially block the flow of blood to the uterus so that internal bleeding would be reduced and clotting would be promoted. This procedure took place from 3:00-5:00 PM. At this point, Alysia was physically exhausted and I was mentally exhausted; it was certainly a day of highs and lows.

While Alysia's struggle was the low of the day, the high was the arrival of our baby girl, Talia Mae. She was born at 11:14 AM with modest measurements 6 lbs. 3 oz. and 19" and a full head of hair. The nurses immediately flocked to her as a cutie. She has the cutest little squeek as a cry. You can see for youself below - this is a video that I took of Talia's check-up immediately after delivery.

We're looking forward to getting to know our new best friend! Congrats to the 11 of you who correctly picked that we would have a baby girl.

Until next time....

- Mike