I am hoping to be able to put into words the 1st few days of Eleanor Lauren Pede’s life. From Deanna going into Labor to us bringing her home 4 days later. Hopefully this website will still be around when she gets older so she can read about what went on. It may get long, but here it goes anyway. (pictures are below the story in case you wish to get right to it)
LABOR BEGINS
It began with Deanna’s regular doctors appointment on the evening of Oct 26th a monday. The Doctors name is Dr Joi Davis. Dr Davis did her thing to try to get the labor started. Women reading this probably know what i mean. Men reading this don’t wanna know. If the men already know, you probably whish you didn’t. Anyways… Dr Davis said that if the baby was born within 48 hours it was all to her credit. Deanna and i got home shortly after. Threw a pizza in the oven and decided to rent a move ON-demand. We rented Confessions of a shopohalic. about 7pm or so Deanna was in some pain. Didn’t realize at 1st what it was but quickly picked up on the fact that the contractions had begun. I immeditely started timing them, as the sheet said if they where consistent 5min apart and 45-60 sec long it was time to go to the hospital. Well that was exactly what they where. Of course we both said to each other “do we really go in now” we decided to call Dr Davis. This was about 9:30pm. Dr Davis said come on in!!!! Deanna took a quick shower while i packed up the car. we got on the road and down the street when deanna informed me that she hadn’t had contractions in a long time. We figured we jumped the gun. So we turned around and came home. Called the doctor to tell her that they went away. We sat back down to try to finish the movie. Shortly after the contractions came right back at the 5min interval. I kept timing them. they where always pretty much the same. never got closer together or lasted longer. Deanna was increasingly more uncomfortable though. we did this for a number of hours. Neither of us getting any sleep. towards the end Deanna would get in 3 min of sleep between each contraction. About 2 o’clock we decided enough was enough, we’re gonna go to the hospital. If we got send home so be it!!!! out the door we went.
AT THE HOSPITAL (before drugs)
We arrived at hospital and signed a bunch of forms then we where taken off to a room so Deanna could be evaluted. Now on the car ride to the hospital the contractions got closer together so we figured we made a good call by leaving. Of course we got there Deanna got changed and got on the table and NOTHING. no contactions!!! The doctor did a physical check and she was only dialated a centemeter and a half. Same as what she was at the earlier doctors appointment. We figured we where being sent home. The hospital staff contacted Dr Davis. Now Dr Davis is awesome. She is a great doctor and we really appreciated everything she did for us, and how she treated us. She told the staff to admit us. The plan was to break Deanna’s water. We got setup in the birthing room. it was about 3:30am, 10/27. The contractions picked right back up again. They where getting stronger at this point as well. About and hour goes by and the resident tryed to break Deanna’s water. Tried hard too!!! Just couldn’t do it. A little while later Dr Davis showed up to give it a shot. She was able to get it done. By Deanna’s face and the noises she was making i could tell this was a horribly painful experience. Dr Davis being the awesome doctor she is said right away it was time for the epidural. As we all know in doctor terms that does not mean you get it withing 2 minutes. It took a while… of course at this point the contractions got a lot stronger. Deanna informed me several times “I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE, I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE”. She only swore at me once which was surprising. With each contration i would remind her to breath. This one time i said it at the wrong time i guess. Have you ever seen the excorcist?? where her voice changes!!! Yeah, it was sorta like that.. in a complete different low pitch angry voice she informed me ” I AM F-ING BREATHING” . Now of course i was expecting this so i giggled a little bit. Don’t think she noticed that. The nurse of course didnt flinch. I figured she probably had seen or heard a lot worse. After the contraction Deanna appologized to me for getting angry. The epidural finally arrived and everything got a lot better.
AT THE HOSPITAL (after drugs)
It was somewhere between 7-8am and the drugs where working good. Deanna had a bunch of tubes and wires hooked up to her at this point. They monitored the baby and Deanna. The nurse would coming and check her out and help flip her from side to side. this would be where the baby was not playing nice. Everytime they would flip Deanna to her right side the baby’s heartrate would drop and not go back up over 100. Deanna basically had to spend the rest of the time on her left side. Now this did lead to one sorta scary and intense moment. Nurse decided to try to flip Deanna again. It was worth a try as she had just spend 3 hours on one side. Only this time the baby’s heart rate stayed low no matter what she did. The nurse (who was also awesome, her name was Jenny) hit the little nurse call panic button on the wall for help. she informed us that there would be a few nurses running in. She was not kidding!! within seconds of her hitting that button there had to be 20 nurses that flew into that room. It was pretty intense for a little while. Luckily they where able to get baby’s heart rate back up and everything was good. Deanna had dialated to 4cent by this point.
THE DELIVERY
Now Deanna had stayed at 4 cent for a while and was really not progressing further. We began the talk that it may have to be a c-section. By the time Dr Davis arrived Deanna had actually gone back to 2 cent and things where starting to swell a bit. It was clear this was not gonna happen the natural way. Dr Davis informed us that it would be best for the baby and Deanna if we did the C-Section. We of course agreed. Deanna was nervious about the C-section a bit, which is to be expected. It is major surgery really. I was pretty relaxed and confident about it. It was a little after 2pm on the 27th that the decision was made. They immediately got her ready. We got transfered to different room for the surgery. They got deanna ready in the room while i got my outfit on. booties on the shoes, a hat,mask and a full white body suite. Wish i got a picture of that. I got in the room and sat by Deanna’s head. There was big blue cloth below her head so we couldn’t see anything that was going on. I was told i could look. I opted not to. just stayed by her head and held her hand. She didn’t feel much of anything. just a little pressure at times. At 2:57 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 Eleanor Lauren Pede was brought into the world. We didn’t see her right away. the nurses took her to get her cleaned up and checked out. They did bring her by Deanna’s head. Funny thing was Deann’s arms where strapped down and she was frustrated. She wanted to touch her of course. the nurses undid the straps and she was able to touch her. I got a cool picture of that. We where told that Eleanor had a slight irregular heart beat and she would be taken to the NICU for observation while Deanna spent time in the recover room. I went with Deanna to make sure she was alright then went to see my Daughter in the NICU. was able to touch her and get a few good pictures and video of her. By this time her heartbeat was normal. I guess this sort of thing is very normal in new borns. So we didn’t have to worry. I spent about 30 minutes with Eleanor there then went back to check on Deanna. Deanna was about to be taken back to our room after she went to visit Eleanor in the NICU. The fact that i had not eaten in 18 hours had all of a sudden hit me. I went to get something to eat and would meet Deanna back in the room later.
THE 3 OF US TOGETHER AT LAST
Now up to this point. It didn’t seem real. I had seen her born. touched her in the NICU, but it wasn’t until they brought her to the room that it felt real. I think it was holding her that did it. It was and still is an amazing feeling. It is really hard to even put into words. You hear people say how wonderful it is, but you just don’t get it until it actually happens to you. We spent the next few days getting to know our daughter. Holding her, talking to her, feeding her. The entire nursing staff at Waukesha Memorial was awesome!! They where all very helpfull in answering questions and telling us what we needed to know. We where also very blessed to have so many family and friends visit us. We both where very happy that you all took the time. It was great to see and talk with everyone. Now of course neither of us have gotten a lot of sleep. With a new baby you just don’t, but it is all worth it believe me. The lack of sleep brings a funny story that Deanna will no doubt tell over and over. I will try to tell it but it sounds better in person. Deanna was still connected to bunch of tubes and stuff. so she really couldnt’ get out of bed. The baby was in a crib in our room, next to Deanna’s bed. finally at 3am i had fallen asleep on the littel couch. The baby started to cry and i didn’t hear her. Deanna tried to get me up by calling my name. no response. She started grabbing things nearby and throwing them at me to get me to wake up. She threw the following items: kleenex box, baby clothes, pillows, pen, diaper, tv remote, etc…. i woke up finally and she said, “baby is crying and i can’t get outta bed” i got up and realized i was covered in all this stuff. She informed me of what she was doing. I actually felt pretty bad. hopefully that wont be a reoccuring thing for me. It did happen more than once also. Not good
COMING HOME
We left the hosiptal with Eleanor on 10/30/09, Friday afternoon. We where Anxious to get home. We couldn’t wait to introduce Eleanor to Toby, Gordon and Madison, (for those of you who don’t know, our dog and cats). We where also nervious as our house is not equiped with the nurse call button!!!!!! Toby was interested in Eleanor. Did a lot of sniffing of course. He may be 88lbs but he is very cautious and gentle. Deanna and i where not worried. We actually figured he would be afraid of her. Gordon of course could have cared less. was just happy we where home so he could get fed!!!! Eleanor actually go to meet Madison. If you don’t already know Madison is afraid of everyone and everything and usually hides. She came up and sniffed Eleanor. Then hid under the bed. I gave Eleanor a tour of her new home and now the journey into parenthood begins.
IN CLOSING
Deanna and I would love to thank everyone at Waukesha Memorial for all the help and support. They really helped give us the confidence to leave the hospital and really start being parents. Most of all we need to thank our Family and friends who have alway supported us and continue to do so. Without the love and support of all of you there is no way we could have gotten through this. Nor have the confidence that we can be good parents. We are both truely blessed with the gift of beautiful and healthy baby girl… Eleanor Lauren Pede
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