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Just wanted to thank everyone for all their best wishes and support! The following "book" is my birth story :)

If you have any questions regarding the labor or birth process (C-Section), please post and I will be happy to answer.

So it all started at 4:22am on 6/25/10, our DD's due date. I woke up as I normally did to take one of many bathroom breaks. This time it was a little different. I actually had a "bloody show" which for some reason I wasn't expecting. I immediately called the doctor to let him know but since at the time of the call I didn't have any contractions yet, I had to wait it out. Luckily, my 40 week appointment was that morning anyway. After the call, I was too excited to sleep so I just laid in bed and then that's when the contractions started. They were approximately 10 minutes apart but varying between 8 and 12 minutes apart at that time and they were nothing stronger than the average period cramping with the addition of lower back pain. We were getting closer and I knew we were making progress so I was getting SUPER excited! Mind you the Thursday before we were already measured at 3 cm and 70% effaced.

9:15 am we headed in for our 40 week appointment where the doc did the usual. He measured my belly, heard the heartbeat then went in for the internal examination. The result? I was 5 cm!! So he told me to head to the hospital, " you are having this baby today". Music to our ears!! What wasn't so nice to hear was that he said the baby seemed a little too big which brought the option of a cesarean into play. What?! Now I was a bit freaked out. I had "plans" on having a natural, vaginal birth. Although I had my plans, I was very flexible as not everything happens the way you would like. Luckily I still had that option and was going to exercise it to the best of my ability as long as Baby Roddy was OK.

So off to the hospital we go. The hubs and I check in and we are sent immediately to a birthing room. Usually, you have to sit in the triage but I got a room immediately. It probably helped that 6/25 was our due date and we had "reservations" for that day. So after getting dressed in the lovely hospital gowns and my Paul Frank booties, they attach a few monitors to check on the baby for about an hour.  They then broke my water and did a little more monitoring. Once they were done they cleaned me up and then they gave me the go ahead to walk around for an hour before they have to do more checks. Let's just say I didn't make it past 15 minutes. The real contractions came and came on fast hitting mostly my lower back at that point. I have to say they hurt a lot more than the contractions in my abdomen. About a half hour later the contractions were affecting both my back and abdomen at that point. They really were too intense for me so I decided about an hour in to stop being a martyr and get the epi. I am so thankful  that I did get it because the pain disappeared and I was able to "relax" and I had the perfect amount of medicine to where I could still move my lower extremities.

Of course because I still have "pregnancy brain" with a lack of sleep I cannot remember in which order I received the pitocin and the epidural, lol. So I will just mention that I had to receive pitocin because I was not dilating. After I had received the pitocin, I still was only dilating maybe a cm per hour or hour and a half. Roughly around 6 PM is when we started to push. We pushed for a total of 2 hours every two minutes with my contractions so you can imagine how tired we all were. Unfortunately, even with that effort the baby wasn't making it through my pelvic bone. She was stuck and would be without an intervention. Before I made the decision to do the c-section, the hubs, doctor and I discussed our options. So the decision was made. C-section it is.

So here's how it went. They transferred me to another bed by way of a blow-up air mattress thing and we made our way to the OR, waiving to my family as they waited for me by the nursery. They prepped me, gave me anesthesia and made me feel real comfortable before they allowed my hubby in wearing his Simpson looking nuclear power plant suit. With the hubs at my head they started the process.  I just laid there with my arms out to each side with my left arm being pumped with antibiotics and my right having my blood pressure taken.  They lowered the curtain but my hubs refused to look so he spent the time staring at me and the floor. I obviously couldn't feel or see anything  but you could hear them doing their work and talking out the procedure. Before they were ready to take the baby out, they warned me that I will be feeling some pressure. The pressure wasn't strong but as my SIL had mentioned, you are tossed a little bit from side to side as they try to get the baby out…think Exorcist. In addition though, someone was leaning on my left boob which I felt for sure.  Not too long after that, the doctor says "Here she is" and then I hear her tiny cry. Every emotion I had stored up in me came out and I started to cry. They took the baby immediately away because she was having some respiratory problems but my hubby was able to see her and cut her umbilical cord. They brought her to me for a few short minutes before they took her away to see the family. After that I didn't get to see her for about an hour as they stitched me up and prepped me to leave the OR.

After that, the next few days in the hospital consisted of the hubby and I getting acquainted with our baby girl and me getting to start the healing process.

Some fun facts:

Saya was born at 8:25 pm - her dad's birthdate is 8/25

Saya, her dad and first Roddy cousin are all born on the 25th of their month

Saya's cousin Elias was born 3/24, she was born 6/25 and her cousin Nelysa was born 2/26 of their respective years.

Saya is the 1st Roddy girl in 55 years.

@prncssDva - THANKS!!

Great question. It is actually pronounced, Sigh-Ya. It is Japanese.

My hubby does too especially Samurai anything! He actually picked out the name.

@ejs - Thanks girl!

For those that haven't seen my previous posts, here are some pictures from our stay in the hospital and some of the latest pictures of her at 3 weeks :)

Congratulations!  Thank you for sharing your story with us!  Love your daughters name - so cute :)

Thank you ladies!!

Congrats!!!

@Mrs DG - My recovery is not typical. They want you to start walking around while you are in the hospital but others still have trouble recovering weeks later. Once I started walking around, I was good. Probably a little too active but my life doesn't stop.

Great question about the milk. My Milk started coming in after day 5 but I didn't get much out even a week later so I was supplementing with formula (Enfamil Premium Lipil). Unfortunately, we ran into a snag. The baby wasn't tolerating my milk very well and was also having trouble with the formula. She was borderline colic so we thought they were the bottles. We changed the bottles but the issue still remained. When she would drink my milk, it was like a laxative and would go right through her while she was drinking it. So with these issues, the doc gave us Similac Sensitive (lactose free) and ever since that change, she has been less fussy and her BMs seem to be normal. She is still gassy but has no problem passing it. While she was on the BM and other formula it could be a half hour and she still couldn't burp. We felt so bad for her. There was nothing that could calm her down for hours. I should mention that I was still giving her the BM with the Simiilac and still had the problems mentioned above so we made the decision to keep her mon Similac only. Of course I was a little disappointed but I was happy that she received some of my milk even though it wasn't as long as I would have liked.

@Janna - one thing I learned about is that when a baby is born vaginally, fluids and mucus are squeezed out of the baby. This isn't the case for a c-section which can actually make the baby intake more fluids, so for a few days after birth the baby will be trying to get rid of this fluid. We learned this because my daughter turned blue on us twice. She was choking on the remaining mucus.

As you can imagine, this scared the hell out of us. Luckily my nurse was in the room when it happened because she worked on my daughter immediately with the little blue sucker removing what was in her mouth. They then checked to make sure she wasn't an underlying breathing issue and it wasn't. THank God!