Isla's Birthday....
"I think she is coming today" Susan says to me as I wake up at 6:15. She has been up since 5:30 with contractions about 7 minutes apart. About 10 minutes later I call my father to come over and take Carter to school. As we put Carter in the car Susan tells him that we are going to pick up baby sister today. Grandpa takes Carter to school and we head off to the hospital.
At the hospital we felt very fortunate to have the same nurse (also named Susan) that we had for Carter. She checked Susan and determined that she was at a 4.5 around 10:30. Doctor Swanson arrived around 12:30, confirmed the nurse's 4.5, and broke Susan's "bag of water".
Then things got interesting.
The anesthesiologist was in a C-section and wouldn't be able to come in to give the epidural right away. At about 1:00 the nurse said that the epidural was coming in about 20 minutes. This was not good news as the contractions had begun to get painful for Susan. 20 minutes later the epidural was coimng in 5-10 minutes. This, once again, was not good news as the contractions were getting more painful. At about 1:30 a new nurse comes in and lets' us know that our nurse is off to lunch and that the epidural is, once again, 5-10 minutes away. 10 minutes later, as Susan is in severe discomfort, I push the call button again and the room floods with 3 nurses and the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist takes one look at Susan and makes an about face out of the room knowing that she is far too late. The nurses call the doctor and, thankfully, one of the nurses takes over and begins coaching Susan on her breathing. Susan asked if she should push and the nurse said not to and her body was doing "exactly what it was supposed to do." The contractions became increasingly intense and frequent. They were coming about every minute and a half and lasting 90 seconds leaving Susan no time to recover.
As all of this is happening I'm looking under the curtain by the door for the doctor's shoes hoping that he would come and save the day. When I saw Isla's head crown I knew that he wasn't going to make it and Isla Clare, after one or two more contractions, was delivered by a nurse we had met about 20 minutes ago. Isla was born at 1:53 p.m., 6 lbs 15 ozs, 20.5 inches. She is healthy, eating well, and perfect.
