How to comfort a laboring woman. . . or rather, how not too.

One thing that I discovered is that in the medical profession we tend to gloss over things. Or deliver bad news in a honey sweet voice. If you listen to the tone, everything is just dandy, but if you catch the actual words, things aren't lookin so good. For example. I didn't sleep at all the night that I was in labor with Ella, I kept hearing her heart rate drop on the monitor, then I would look at the strip to see how low she had gone. When things were really exciting a random assortment of health care workers would rush into the room and have me turn this way or that, put oxygen on me, take it off, put it on again. The one's that didn't know I was nurse would nonchalantly say all sorts of comforting things like "oh don't worry we're just resuscitating the baby." Case in point, the term resusciate. Perhaps if I didn't know what resuscitate meant I would sigh with relief knowing that all was right with the world. However, I do know what resuscitate means and I would not classify 'resuscitate' as a soothing term, in fact it's kind of a red flag. When we resuscitate a baby in the NICU it's not something we do just for kicks and giggles. In fact I would put it in the same category as terms like, 'touch and go,' 'death defying brady,' and my mum's personal favorite 'circling the drain.' You get the picture. Then there was my personal favorite, when one nurse told me my baby looked just fine, and followed that statement up with "but I'm just going to arrange these cables so that if we need to go somewhere in a hurry, we can just take off and go." Huh? Let's back this hospital bed up a bit, where exactly will we be going in a hurry, because if it's Baskin Robbins I'm game. Man I was disappointed when after that run down the hall we ended up not at the ice cream palor but in the OR. I'm still trying to decide if they made a wrong turn.

Ella

Sorry that it took us so long to put this up. I only got the internet installed this week, and our little cutie has kept me very busy. So, at long last we are introducing Ella to the blog. Here's the stats for you:

Ella Cornelia Brooks
born on August 29th at 7:10 am
weight: 2146 grams or 4 lbs 11 ounces
Length: 17 inches
Apgars: 8 & 9 (strong work Ella)
Eyes: yet to be determined
Hair: dark brown and lots of it.
general info: practically perfect in every way
Blood sugars: marvelous

Evan and I were supposed to move into our new house at 9:00 on Saturday, but Ella decided to steal the show and arrive that day instead. I was worried that with the diabetes she would be a big sugar baby, but she surprised me and the OB when she ended up to be very tiny. Less than the 10th percentile for her gestation. Apparently she wasn't growing inside my tummy so they decided to induce me in the hopes that she would grow more outside my belly than inside. We tried to have a traditional delivery, but with her small size and my low amniotic fluid she couldn't tolerate the contractions, and they had to do a c-section for poor fetal heart tones. Once she was born she did wonderfully. She dropped down to 4 and a half pounds a few days after delivery, but she has such an appetite that she has already grown to be 5 pounds 10 ounces (yahoo!). She is even getting a Budah belly and chubby cheeks. We're very proud of her growth, and her good looks, I mean come on she's ADORABLE. Here are some pictures of our little cutie.

It only took about 5 seconds for her to wrap Daddy around her teeny tiny finger. Isn't strange that Evan is a Dad and I'm a Mom, that is going to take a while to get used to.