Introducing Chelsea Leigh Fisher!!!

Baby Girl Fisher - or I should say Chelsea Leigh Fisher entered this world at 5:31PM on January 23rd, 2011!!  Mom and dad are both so so so very very happy!  She is a big girl weighing 9 lbs 8 ozs and measuring 20 1/2 inches long with her head measuring at 14 inches around!  Chelsea is both healthy and strong!

Chelsea's birthday was a long, exhausting day.  This may be a long blog because there is so much to share, and I'll post several pics at the end :-)

Thanks to ben taking some "notes" we have a "timeline" of the first part of the day.  I woke up at 2AM on Sunday with horrible lower back pain.  Not realizing it was contractions I took some tylenol and tried laying back down again.  Within minutes I realized that was a mistake.  OUCH!  I called the nurse line and it turned out I was in back labor.  We started timing the contractions at 2:30 and they were already lasting 50 seconds each and 5 minutes apart.  We took off for the hospital by 3:45AM.  So much for having time at home once labor starts!  We checked in to methodist at 4:30 and by this time the contractions were so bad they stopped me in my tracks when they hit.  I could not walk, talk or do anything for that matter.  I don't think there is anything more physically painful to me than back labor along with the regular contactions.  I was already dialated to 3 at this time.  I was in more and more pain so they decided it was "drug" time immediately.  I received my epidural at 5AM and it felt like heaven!  I was already dialated to 7 by this time...  so a very fast moving labor.

Fast forward to it's time for baby fisher to enter the world!  The docs decided that we were ready to deliver  (start pushing) at 1:15PM.  SO - thinking Baby Fisher's arrival to this world was right around the corner we were all smiles.  Well - 3 hours and 15 minutes of pushing later Baby Fisher was still in the womb, Mama Fisher was beyond exhasted, Daddy Fisher felt helpless and the docs decided our only option was to deliver via C Section. 

I was wheeled into the surgical room and prepped for surgery.  They admitted Ben into the room once I was prepped and they were ready to go.  What a weird feeling it was for me.  Most of my body was numb, but I was wide awake during the operation.   As the doctors were "pulling her out" of me I heard several "amazed voices" exclaiming how big she was and how big her head was.  And then I heard the best sound EVER - My baby girls screaming loudly.  SHE WAS FINALLY WITH US!  They took her immediately out of the room (I did not get to see her) and Ben followed her out. 

As the docs were finishing up with me the nurses were cleaning up Chelsea.  Ben was able to be with our daughter while this was going on.  All i remember about the immediate moment was seeing ben look back in the surgical room thru the window to me with a double thumbs up.  I was still laying there on the surgical bed and just burst out in tears.  It was such a long day but was all worth it - our baby girl is HEALTHY!

Rewind to while I was pushing... my temp spiked to a fever and her heart rate spiked a bit during hour two of pushing.  They put an antibiotic thru my IV and took blood to test assuming an infection caused these spikes.  The infection could have been caused by a number of "things" thru out the labor and is not entirely uncommon.  Because of the quick treatment the infection left my body as soon as she was delivered.  BUT- because of this (as a precaution only) she was admitted to the level two nursery from the time she was born to this morning (Tuesday) for monitoring. We were able to visit, feed, hold her at any time of day / night while she was in there.  She is now finally in room with us for the last day / night of our stay!  Since she was just brought in I will wrap up this blog, post a couple pictures and write some more a little bit later.

***Pictures are from Sunday and Monday.  Grandma and Grandpa Loveland came to visit her Monday Afternoon***