Announcing the one and only Olivia Jayne Garcia!

It's been a few days since she's entered the world and all ready my life has been turned upside down...in a good way of course. Dave is an amazing father...as I write this he is sitting on the chair in my hospital room just cuddling with his little girl. They both seem to enjoy napping a lot! It's very charming and makes me so happy to see our little family forming all ready!

As for me...the road to recovery from my emergency c-section is going to be a LONG one. The story of little Olivia's birth is rather involved and complex. It was certainly as eventful as this pregnancy has been if not more eventful, which cleary is expected because nothing that little Olivia and I went through was typical or normal by any stretch.

The day I went into labor (Wednesday 10.15.08), I woke up around 7am and felt different, i just thought maybe that would be THE DAY! So, I went about my business - I had breakfast and lunch, watched TV and just waited it out.

As the day went on, my stomach was hard like a rock and my back was crampy so i called my OB's office. They had me come in and do a labor check at approximately 2:30pm. Luckily Dave was done with work that day and was able to come with me!! One of the midwives there said she was convinced I was in early labor and even questioned if I had a slow leak of amniotic fluid!! They did a bunch of tests that were coming back inconclusive so they weren't totally sure about the leaking. I just knew I was getting a lot wetter than usual. The possibility alone that I was leaking gave me a ticket to Labor and Delivery (L&D). They still wanted to check the baby, so they hooked me up to the NST machine and I was contracting every 5 mins....off to L&D I go!!

Dave and I got to L&D at about 5:30pm. When we got there they set me up in triage and checked my vitals, etc. After an internal exam it was determined I was 3cm and 100% and they went about trying to figure out if my water broke or not - which ultimately it was determined that it was slowly leaking so I wasn't' going home to "wait it out" i was going to have this baby!!

**Now, it's important for me to interject here that I may have been a little short with one of the midwives. She came in and said that she wasn't sure if I was leaking and I was only in early labor...at that point, I flashed with fear...I thought she was considering sending me home to wait it out and see if my water broke...and yeah, I was not going to be having that...clearly that was NOT going to be an option. According to my mom, who had met us there in triage, I actually sat up and with daggers in my eyes said to the woman "I AM 40 WEEKS AND 5 DAYS ALONG. I AM IN LABOR. I AM NOT LEAVING HERE WITHOUT A BABY." Obviously she was shocked and left the room...when she came back...she was nicer, and I was admitted!!

by 8pm we were up in our Labor and Delivery Room. and by 8:15pm my mucos plug fell all the way out and by 8:30pm I was gushing the remainder of my water - which was a mess and all over the floor of the room. It just kept coming too, which truthfully was amazing to me...I had NO clue it just kept coming out like that...amazing stuff!

Around 10:45pm I got my epi...which was a god send considering what was about to come. I ended up laboring all night with some progress but not too much. By 7am I was only 6cm and by 11am I was up to about 8cm (this is with Pitocin as well).

Now is when it gets complicated - I had a been flirthing with a fever from about 11pm on...so clearly I had some sort of infection. And by 6am I had a full blown 101.3 fever going. I was hot, full of drugs and really uncomfortable. (Though I couldn't feel any of the contractions thanks to the wonderful people in the anestesia department!!) At this point, my midwife team turned me over the OB on call and he came in. With a fever of nearly 102 it was time for decisions to be made. By 11:30am I had signed my consent for a c-section and by 12:00pm I was under the knife.

After about an hour the doctor delivered Olivia with some complications. I lost a lot of blood, my uterus had to be cut the long way to get her out due to her immense size, and I was shaking uncontrollably. I couldn't talk and threw up during my c-section as well. It was bad. Dave said he thought I was going to die. I never thought that but I didn't see it from HIS point of view. They had me all closed up and wheeled back in the room by 2pm though. At that point I was in and out of consciousness and wasnt doing well. The other downside of the c-section is that I have essentially two different incisions. Outside i'm cut horizontally, but inside I'm cute vertically. Because of the way my uterus had to be cut I can never have a Vaginal Birth. IF I ever chose to do this again, it would have to be a c-section!

After getting back to my L&D room, I was still very feverish, exhausted and really just needed rest. Both Olivia and I continued antibiotics for 48 hours and our fevers went away. My fever broke on Saturday morning and Olivia's broke about 7 hours after she was born.

Over the weekend I was given 2 pints of blood because of my Hematocrit levels (Essentially this means I'm really anemic right now). The average woman's levels should be about 35-38% for women. Prior to my c-section I was at 30%. My levels post c-section were 17%, with one blood transfusion we were back to about 19%, with two blood transfusions we were at 22% and now as I type this I am getting my 3rd blood transfusion. Obviously I didn't want another transfusion but with my levels still SO LOW we had to do something to ensure that I was going to be able to go home and not fall over because I'm anemic. I will also be taking a lot of iron once I get home as well to help get my body back to normal.

Another joyous side effect of my exciting c-section experience is the fact that I actually have what is known as pitted adema. This means you can make indents on my feet and legs that will stay there for at least a minute. it's horrific and my legs and knees look huge!! For this condition they are going to give me a diuretic to help flush out the water tonight as well. I am having trouble walking/standing and moving. I get short of breath pretty easily because I'm so swollen and it's rough...let's not even talk about the amount of swelling I have in my little lady area (she looks like a hot dog bun!) and I didn't even PUSH!

Anyway, the long and short of it is this. Olivia is awesome, I love her so much. Though I don't intend to EVER do this again for another little person, I know that I would go through all this again for her. She's amazing, precious, and really just starting to turn into her beautiful little self. I LOVE being around her and knowing that we have an incredible journey ahead as mother and daughter. Granted, she did make me wait until AFTER I turned 30 to have her...I won't hold it against her!! :-)