Possibly the Most Boring Birth Story Ever (Part 1)

My baby sister, Eloise Belle, was born last Tuesday, January 10 at 10:01 PM. She made her debut at 19.5 inches tall, weighing 6 pounds 8 ounces - a little peanut!

Mommy was surprised by how little she was; when the doctors went all hysterical at the beginning of December and thought that they were going to deliver right then, they gave Mommy all of the steroid shots and a magnesium drip to speed up development. When things calmed down and they *didn't* end up delivering Squishy - and time went on and on - Mommy began to think that she was going to birth the Hulk. There was a LOT of doubt that Mommy was going to make it through mid-December, let alone get to full term on 1/2. Once Mommy hit 2012, therefore, she was ready to get off of bed rest and get my baby sister OUT. Of course, once Mommy was ready, all of her levels stabilized and the emergency passed. She still had to go to 3-5 doctor's appointments per week for monitoring and NSTs and biophysical profiles and platelet counts, etc, etc, etc. Every visit, she had some hope that there would be some progress and they would send her over to L&D, but test after test came back okay, and they scheduled her c-section for January 17.

Tuesday morning, she went to a regular Ob-Gyn visit, and was a little bit dilated and effaced, but nothing to get excited over. That afternoon, she went to the MFM, where Squishy performed fine on her NST, and Mommy's blood pressure was borderline, but not super high. The phlebotomist drew blood, but Mommy did not expect her platelet levels to have dropped - and she went into the ultrasound for her bi-weekly biophysical profile fairly confident that she'd be headed home within 20 minutes.

The ultrasound quickly revealed why Mommy had been so uncomfortable over the weekend; Squishy had shifted from head down to transverse, and was also facing forward so her skull and spine were pushed against Mommy's, and when Mommy stood up, Squishy's weight dropped and pushed her hips apart. (Seriously, Mommy had real difficulty walking all weekend.) The ultrasound also showed only one pocket of fluid - and that Mommy's fluid levels had dropped from 14 on Friday to 4 on Tuesday. The ultrasound tech conferred with Mommy's MFM, and they decided that it was Squishy's birthday!

Mommy is *convinced* that they only reason her fluid levels dropped was that, despite her 6 weeks of bed rest and knowledge of an imminent newborn arrival, neither her bag nor mine was packed. When she called Daddy to let him know that he should maybe come meet her at the hospital, she also had to give him a list of my stuff to gather and bring to Coach's house with me. At one point, both of our bags were packed, but then we needed laundry and stuff got added and taken out so they were just not ready at all. HAD they been neatly packed and waiting by the door, we would still be waiting for Lulu...

ANYway, Mommy headed over to the hospital, where Grammy Boo and Daddy met her, and got ready to have my baby sister. This was about as far from MY birth experience as possible. This post is already epic, so I'll finish the rest tomorrow - can you believe Lulu will already be a week old?!