I realize that there was a pretty big gap between the last two entries, but I was kind of busy during that time. Also, by the time I posted the birth announcement it was toward the end of what would be a very long 22 hour day, so I wasn't up to delving into an eloquent description of the whole process. So here's the rest of the story.
By about 8:45 Becca was fully dilated and by 9pm she started pushing. We got a quick lesson in pushing from our nurse and I got a lesson in how to count to 10. Apparently in the beginning in my attempt to get it all over for Becca as quickly as possible I was counting a little to fast, but I eventually got a handle on the right pace.
About 30 minutes into it, Becca started feeling some strong pain in her back. It seems like the epidural had worn off a little bit and it got so bad that she really couldn't push anymore. On top of this Becca threw up three times amongst the pushing which wasn't fun at all for anyone but luckily I had a bucket close by just for the occasion.
By about an hour in things were progressing kind of slowly and the pain for Becca was unbearable. A call was made to the anesthesiologist and after a booster of the epidural and a few minutes of rest we started back up. Things started going a little better and Becca was no longer in pain, but the baby still wasn't coming out quickly. The nurse was getting concerned that the baby was in back labor and about an hour and a half into pushing she decided to call the doctor. The nurse made an off handed comment about how once the doctor shows up the baby will probably decide to come, and sure enough she did.
Dr. Lehnert showed up and within a few minutes the head was very visible. As I was watching I remember thinking that the head didn't look that big and that this was going to be a little baby. Then all of a sudden with a final push from Becca the little head turned into a huge head and a big baby came out. It was a little scary when she first came out because she was bright purple and didn't start crying immediately. To our relief though, with a few pats from the doctor she was breathing fine and they quickly got her over to the warming area.
At 10:58 pm on June 8, 2009 we had our new little miracle and I knew immediately that she was a Zeda. I asked Becca about the name, but by this point she was so exhausted she would agree with anything I said. The nurses cleaned her up a little and we tried the first breast feeding, where Becca threw up for the fourth time. She was just so tired that she couldn't do much. After that we let the family rush in to get to hold the new baby and take lots of pictures. After a while the nurse took her for her first bath and we moved to the room we'd be spending the next two days in. By the time it was all done we finally got to bed about 2:30am, but the whole exhausting day was more than worth it.
