Our Newest Addition

Yesterday was a long day. I don't think I can put it any better than that. My wife and I arrived at the hospital at an early 0700 so that Dr. Alexander could break her water. After a few preparatory vitals and such, her water was broken around 0735. We spent the next hour or so walking around the hospital in hopes that the walking would allow labor to progress on its own. When we got back to the birthing center room, Diana was hooked back up to the monitors so that the baby's heartrate and the level of contraction intensity could be followed. Well during a particularly tough contraction Diana began to rock her body to help keep her mind off the pain. During this rocking period the baby's heartrate dropped to the low 80's (good is 140-150). The nurses came running in to fix the problem and put Diana back into the bed and had her stay there until the Dr. could get here. Once the doc arrived he reccomended that she stay in bed until the actual delivery was over. While this was good for the baby, it hindered the progress of the labor and Diana was stuck at 5cm for quite some time. Finally Dr. Alexander decided to give the labor a little chemical push with pitocin. This happened around 1130. Diana began to progress a little better but the pitocin caused the contractions to come too frequently with no break in between. Diana took it like a champ though and made it all the way to full dialation without an epideral. Finally at around 1630 we were ready to push. After the six or seventh good push though the baby's heartrate dropped down to the 50's.....ICK!!!!! The doctor quickly decided to take Diana to the OR and preformed an emergency C-section. This ended up being the best possible decision because the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck and was chocking him. However, Baby Nathaniel Scott St. Louis was pulled out of the womb and let out his first cries at 1704 on the 15 Dec 2009. Needless to say I am as proud as a new daddy can get. Baby Nathaniel measured 21 1/2inches and was 7lbs 13oz. Mommy and baby are doing fine as is attested by this beautiful picture below. The first one taken of baby and mommy together.