The conclusion (one chapter closes...a new one begins)

Read the introduction and the body, the two previous posts, first...

After Mirabella was cleaned up, she and Jeff returned to me for another meeting, our official first meeting. It was like nothing I had ever felt. There she was, looking at me and it all felt like a dream. How thankful we were that she was healthy. After a short time, dad and daughter were taken away while the doctor finished taking care of mom. Jeff would get to introduce our daughter to the grandparents. He'd walk down to where they were anxiously awaiting some news and when he got there he announced, "This is Mirabella!" They were all so happy and excited.

I would wake up fifteen minutes later and my shakes were better, but still there. I was told they were going to give me something to calm them, so I asked if that was going to happen, but was told it did and I had just woken up from what they had given me. I was hoping for the shakes to stop, but they didn't. When I was ready to go to the recovery room, they continued the entire ride. I was covered in hot towels and although they felt nice, they didn't stop the shaking. It wasn't until what seemed like forever in the recovery area, when they gave me something else, that the shakes would finally cease and I was relieved. Jeff returned with our Mirabella. What joy. Our parents also returned, two at a time. They were exhausted, but Mirabella energized them. They left to get some sleep soon after.

At after 5:00 am on Sunday (Sunday, March 1st, the morning of Mirabella's birth), our family of three would arrive in the hospital room we would stay in until Thursday (Thursday, March 5th, Mirabella's original due date). After two hours of sleep, Jeff and I would start our Sunday. I was given antibiotics for a fever I had after delivery and would later be told I had lost a lot of blood which could require a blood transfusion (sounded frightening to me, but two days later I'd be told the need was gone). We were informed of Mirabella's jaundice, so she would require phototherapy (light) by the use of a biliblanket.


The hard part for Jeff and me was that all we wanted to do was hold her every second, but she would have to return to the lights as much as possible. We abided, as much as we could. :) By Tuesday, the news would be broken that she had lost 12% of her body weight, 10% is concerning, so this was not good. We would have to supplement my colostrum (and/or what was there of my breast milk), with formula which would be given in the nursery that night through a dropper or syringe so as not to introduce her to a bottle yet. The next morning I would be instructed on how to use a supplemental nursing system (SNS).



And here we thought this breastfeeding thing was a piece of cake with her latching on like a champ those first two days! It turns out, she just wasn't getting enough and we didn't know it. After a full day of my using the SNS, we would receive the best news: it was working and Mirabella's weight was down only 8% by Wednesday. Our nurse at that time informed us that when they are down so low in weight, the hope is that they don't drop any lower, but to see her gain such a huge amount in a such a short amount of time was beyond successful. My milk had started to come in by Wednesday and was fully in by the next day.






That Thursday morning we would also be told Mirabella had improved so much that we wouldn't need to take the biliblanket home with us, as we were warned could have been the case previously. Great news. She was healing, I was healing and it was time for us to go home. Finally! (And I have to ask---who ever said to bring clothes that fit you when you were about five months pregnant to go home in? Try nine months. Granted, I was retaining a ton of fluid, but no one prepared me for how huge my belly was still going to be. It was down from what it was, but still big. Was I a rare case? Ugh. Thank goodness it gets smaller every day, but man, those first couple days were very difficult on the self esteem!)

I only made Jeff pull over once on the car ride home to check and see if she was breathing. Mirabella's first public appearance was made at, of course, Chipotle. We enjoyed our lunch with her asleep. Poor girl probably didn't even get a sniff of the heavenly aroma in that place. In due time.




We were greeted by a stork holding pink balloons and a baby wrapped in a pink blanket in our yard when we arrived at home. Our neighbors are the best. I had a sneak peak since Jeff had stopped home during the week and surprised me with some photos when he came back to the hospital. I was so touched, and yes, the tears came. What a shocker that is these days. :)



We had so many visitors up to the hospital to meet our precious baby and to convey their congratulations to Jeff and me. Thank you to all of you and my apologies to our Sunday visitors for being a bit (or more than a bit) out of it as the day went on due to the pain meds combined with my sleep deprivation (and Jeff's too). The visitors have continued since we left the hospital too, almost daily, sometimes multiples per day. It's beautiful to see the introductions and everyone's reactions to her. Our time at home has been cherished and amidst the many new challenges, things get easier each day. Jeff returned to work for a half day the Friday after we came home (Friday, March 6th) and due to our appointments with a lactation consultant the following Monday and Mirabella's first doctor appointment on Tuesday (her doctor said she was perfect and she was already up to 7 pounds 9 ounces, two ounces more than when she was born, so she's been getting her share of grub...just like mama!), he worked half days on those days too before returning to more of a regular schedule by Wednesday.

I've adjusted very well to being home with her; I yearn for more time at home with her. I'm looking forward to being able to drive again since I was advised I needed to wait two weeks because of the c-section (and pain meds, which I am no longer on). Recovery has been good (slow, but good), but I cannot wait to get in my groove and begin to move like my old self again. My mantra with that, and with a new baby in the house has been, "Be patient. Stay calm. Be patient. Stay calm." So far, thankfully it's been working, helping at least. In case anyone was wondering since I haven't had a track record of being too good at it...I'm fabulous at changing dirty diapers now. A pro. Spit up? Fine. Have at it, baby. I was growing somewhat tired of hearing "it'll being different when it's your own" but yes, it's been the case. We love, love, love Mirabella more than any words could describe. We stare at her. Smile at her. Kiss her. Hold her. Talk to her. Cry (I cry...a lot). Happy tears knowing I have a daughter and she is here and I love her more than I thought possible. No, that's not necessarily true...I knew I would feel this.

I still haven't decided what to do about this blog. Even with an infant at home, it's tough to stay away. I can't lie: it's tough to find the time (between feedings) right now too. I'll just leave this post with saying, I know this won't be my last post. Thanks everyone for all of the congratulations, wishes, support, happiness and pure, incredible love we have received at this unbelievably joyous and surreal time in our lives.

Forever grateful continuously seems to be an understatement around the Jiovanazzo home.

The body (the road to meeting Mirabella)

This post contains graphic pictures

Read the introduction, the previous post, first...
Now at the hospital at 8:30 am on Saturday (Saturday, February 28th), we made our way to the sixth floor and to the maternal assessment center at Abbott. I got in a hospital gown and was hooked up to a machine that measured my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. Just seeing the screen flash with that heartbeat was worth going in. I needed that reassurance. It came time to do a test to see if my water had broken, which required just swabbing me with a long Q-tip like thingy. I was warned that because of the blood, the chances of a false positive were likely. That's exactly what we got. So, it was time for the triage nurse to do a pelvic exam to check and see if my cervix was dilated and to what extent. I swear, she had her arm elbow deep inside of me and it was terrible! After all that, she couldn't reach my cervix so it was time to call my doc away from what he was doing and have him try.

Instantly I was calmed as I saw Dr. Chow enter the room. I love my doctor. As he edged his hand inside, the discomfort was almost intolerable and as I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, the pain subsided and he removed his hand. He explained that there was a block and once he broke through it, I was completely effaced. He asked if I wanted an epidural and I said, "Yes, eventually I think." He said, "No, do you want an epidural, because if you do, now is the time." I was scared and shocked and elated! He continued with, "You did a lot of work at home. You're dilated to almost a five (I was fully closed just a few short days before). Let's get you admitted, you're going to have a baby today!" Wow. We were relieved to be staying. We called our parents and both sets arrived shortly thereafter.




The plan would be for me to get situated in a room (the room I would deliver in), my water bag would be broken and I'd get my epidural. They may administer some Pitocin to speed up my contractions too. I was told that once my water bag was broken and the Pitocin was given, the contractions were going to get really intense. I wasn't totally prepared for the intensity and I was miserable for a while. A long while. My epidural would come late.

My doctor and the nurse made a mess of my bed by breaking my water bag (I was nervous about it hurting, but it didn't; it just felt like a pool of hot water coming out of me) soon after I got settled there. Thinking the epidural was within minutes, Pitocin was given. I waited anxiously for the epidural. And waited. And waited. The contractions were almost unbearable. The pain in my rectum was something no one told me about and with each contraction, I felt like a baby may come out of my rear! The baby was putting a ton of pressure on me there. That was the worst part. My nurse would apologize that it was taking so long for the epidural, ensuring that this was not common...as if I cared what was common or uncommon at that point, I just needed some drugs! It was so busy that day. My doctor was already set to deliver six babies that day alone and we'd be the seventh. My nurse, Barb, who was wonderful, suggested that maybe I'd want some other type of drug through my IV to relieve some pain, Nubain, until the anesthesiologist could get there. I didn't want it, but I really wanted it too. I succumbed and she came with the needle and I chickened out...I braved it out (pat, pat on the back :)) and decided if the anesthesiologist was going to be there sooner rather than later, I could wait. I was proud of myself, and confirmed my stupidity when the next contraction came.

After way too long, the anesthesiologist came and I was more than ready. It was a lot less scary than I thought. The hardest part was staying still while I contracted with him having a needle in my back. It was about 1:30 pm when it was in place. I was told within 10-15 minutes it would start working. At fifteen I could tell my contractions were getting less intense and in a half hour, I was smiling again. Our parents returned to the room and I felt better because I could speak again. Ahh...epidural. Could this also be the miracle of birth?

A new nurse, Rochelle, replaced Barb and she was just as wonderful, if not even more so. Now it was time to wait for my cervix to dilate. I was at a five now and needed to be at a ten to start pushing. I waited. Jeff waited. Our parents waited. It was slow. The Pitocin was turned up. Several hours passed. I was dilated to a six when my doctor thought I should have been further, so he said we'd wait another couple hours after turning up the Pitocin again and we'd hope for me to dilated to an eight. When he returned, I was! When he left the room, he said we'd hope for me to be dilated to a ten, a couple hours later, by 10:00 pm and it would be time for me to start pushing. Whoa...crazy! When he returned, low and behold, I was dilated to a ten and it was time! Finally, it was time.

At 10:30 on Saturday night (Saturday, February 28th), I began trying to push my baby out. I was given the instructions to take a deep breath in when I felt a contraction, Jeff would hold one leg up and the nurse would hold the other. I would push for ten seconds, breathe, push for ten seconds, breath, push for ten seconds and relax. Sounded simple enough to me. Within two rounds, I distinctly felt the baby's head way down in my birth canal. The doctor pulled Jeff around to look and he could see part of the baby's head and we found out our baby had hair. I felt like this was going to go quickly if the baby was already there. I was wrong. The baby was sunny side up (head down, face up) when he or she should have been head down, face down. An hour into it, Rochelle's shift would end and I really started to lose steam. At this point, I was 41 1/2 hours without sleep; my energy level was lacking. My doctor had managed to turn the baby to the correct position at this halfway point, but still, there was no further movement. I stared at the clock on the wall directly in front of me and I watched the last day in February turn to the first day in March. I pushed...and pushed...and pushed.

At 12:30 am on Sunday (Sunday, March 1st, 2009---what would come to be known as our baby's birth date), I had approached the two hour mark for pushing. At that time, my doctor decided we needed to explore other options. There were some guidelines and after two hours of pushing with an epidural, it was time to make some decisions. There were four options: continue pushing, but for only a short time, use the vacuum and still deliver vaginally, use the forceps and still deliver vaginally or c-section. Right away my doctor took the vacuum option off the table and with my lack of sleep, gently swayed me not to continue pushing any longer, although he would have let me had I really wanted to. I was exhausted. No more pushing, unless the forceps was going to be used. We talked with him for a while about the forceps and c-section options and then he left the room so Jeff and I could weigh the two. We went back and forth, back and forth. We had almost decided on using the forceps and just before the doctor came in, changed to the c-section option. Our baby was stuck in my birth canal; he or she had been through enough and it was time to do what we thought was the best thing for him or her. I second-guessed every part of our decision, but I would have done that no matter what we had decided. At a little after 1:00 am, it was decided that I was going into surgery and my doctor left to start preparations. Jeff got dressed in his scrubs and after, they wheeled me out of the room and into the operating room. It was 1:25 am.


Jeff would wait in a waiting area outside the room while I was prepped. There were so many people in the room there to help me and the need to thank them came over me. All of these people would make sure my baby and I got through this safely. Within minutes of being in the O.R., I began to shake uncontrollably. It was scary, but my two anaesthesiologists assured me I was OK and that this happens sometimes. Still, I hated it because of how out of control I felt. Once preparations were set, it was time to begin and my doctor said, "Where's Jeff? Why isn't Jeff here? Someone bring Jeff in!" I was wondering myself where he was and then he appeared. Still shaking, I tried to reassure him that all was fine and that they said it was normal. He described it later as it looked like I was convulsing; that's how it felt to me too.

The process began. I could feel tugging, but no pain. I was so anxious and excited to meet our baby after all this time! I kept asking Jeff through my chattering teeth and shaky voice, "Can you see? Do you know if its a boy or a girl?" He couldn't and didn't know yet and then they said for us to get ready...the head was coming...and there it was outside of me. I couldn't see a thing with the curtain up, but I felt it leave my body. I relied on Jeff for the play by play. He still didn't know, boy or girl. Then the doctor said, "It looks like a boy's head to me!"




Since I thought we were having a boy, a smile came across my face, but I wasn't shocked. I was just waiting there to meet him. Then I was told I'd feel a lot of pressure, like nothing I had ever felt. I felt pressure again, not pain, and I could feel the body pulled from inside of me. I heard gasps from the staff, not scary ones, but happy, surprised ones as I asked Jeff and found out, "It's a girl!" It was 2:20 am.




I could feel my smile from ear to ear and my eyes get bigger with surprise; I just could not believe that we had a girl. The doctor held her over the curtain and there my baby girl was! She was coated in blood, but so beautiful. Jeff and the nurses moved to the left of me as they cleaned her up. I could see them through my shakes, and was so eager for them to come back to me. At last, our precious little girl had arrived...

The introduction (to labor)

As I mentioned in a previous post, a couple Thursdays ago (Thursday, February 26th) I started to feel like going into labor sooner rather than later was a real possibility. That night, when I went to the bathroom, I saw what appeared to be the start of me losing my mucous plug, also known as the bloody show (sorry about the yucky pictures those words paint, but I didn't term them!). (Leading up to this point, I had already felt like my baby was dropping and had more Braxton Hicks contractions.) It was slight, but enough to make me wonder and I immediately called my mom and got online to do a little research. I was prepared for this to happen, but I still didn't know exactly what it all meant regarding when to expect the baby. Some sites said labor could come within hours of losing it, some said it could be within days. Either way, it seemed to me that our baby wasn't going to wait until March 5th, my due date. I didn't want to alarm Jeff, who was out with some guys that night, but I did end up calling just to make sure he didn't have that extra beer...just in case. He answered the phone excitedly with, "Are we ready to have our baby?" So much for not wanting to get him fired up with a false alarm. I let him know not to worry and he would end up returning home a pretty short time later.

I had some sporadic contractions throughout the night and when it came time to get ready for work the next morning (Friday, February 27th), the thought crossed my mind that I may not be working the full day and end up in the hospital. We thought it was best for Jeff to drive me that day. We were looking forward to a dinner and movie date night that night, but at the end of the work day, still having sporadic contractions throughout the day and feeling more and more uncomfortable, decided that maybe dinner would be all I could handle. Before he picked me up, thinking a baby may make an appearance before Monday morning came along, I made sure to have all my ducks in a row at work, including turning on my out of office reply that I would be on maternity leave and changing my voicemail to reflect a similar message. I said goodbye to my co-workers feeling like it was going to be a longer goodbye than usual on a Friday.

Jeff and I made it to dinner close to our house just fine and settled in at home after to watch a movie. The movie concluded and the contractions really began and became more intense and regular around 8:00pm. I figured this had to be it, but when your water doesn't break, it's just so tough to know what is really what with the contractions being a first-timer. So we got through them as we best knew how and finally ended up calling the clinic a short time later, at 10:04 pm, when they were approaching five minutes between. Our doctor, who was thankfully on call that weekend, called us back a few minutes later at 10:08 pm. I explained that I was OK at home, but since we were instructed to call when the contractions were five minutes apart, we wanted to make sure we didn't have to come to the hospital at that time. After a set of questions, we determined I would stay home until the contractions became more intense and remained five minutes apart or less consistently.

So, the long night began. Jeff got out the stopwatch and we got through the contractions together. The breathing came fairly naturally (luckily, because we only spent about ten minutes on breathing techniques during one of our classes) since it was all I could do to try and relieve some of the discomfort. We headed to bed and discomfort turned to pain later that night, or very early the next morning (Saturday, February 28th), I should say. Jeff was great with the stopwatch at first, starting the timer when a contraction began, stopping it when it ended and giving me the report when the cycle was done. But after a while when I'd wait for the beep, the beep didn't come and I heard a soft snore. I knew it was going to be a long night and that he would need his energy, so I let him sleep. I was jealous, but I knew it would benefit us both. Still, he hardly had much sleep to speak of, but every little bit counted. It was funny because he'd randomly wake up as I was having another contraction (while I was chanting ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow continuously) and I'd hear his watch beep as if he hadn't missed the six contractions prior!

A couple times throughout the night, Jeff would say we needed to go to the hospital, no more phone calls to my clinic, we just needed to go. I almost agreed with him, but somehow we always ended up staying. I figured it was better to go through all of this at home than to wait it out at the hospital. I was glad we did, although a home epidural kit would have been real nice. I took two hot baths which helped in the night, but this madness wasn't going to stop. I think the longest time in between my contractions the entire night was nine minutes, once, but the average was between four and a half minutes and six minutes or so. I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. I would never sleep through the night again...or at least for some time! What a harsh realization, but there was no escaping it.

We called the clinic again at 4:38 am and expected another swift phone call from Dr. Chow. We waited. Figuring he was in surgery, we contemplated just heading to the hospital, but we stayed. Jeff got in a tiny bit more sleep and finally the doctor called at 7:21 am. By this time, I was having more bleeding (more like discharge mixed with blood, but heavier and it was a regular occurrence when I would go to the bathroom, which was almost after every contraction...sorry guys) and it concerned me some. I was happy he wasn't as concerned about that, but he wanted to make sure my water bag hadn't ruptured (as I had told him the bloody-tinged liquid was running down both legs at one point when I went to the bathroom...sorry again guys). He would inform the hospital I would be coming within two hours for an evaluation. We figured that even if they didn't admit me, which could easily be the case, we would at least have the peace of mind that everything checked out, even if we were sent home. I wondered how the pain I was experiencing couldn't be worthy of admitting me, but I really just wanted to make sure everything was without complication. Jeff and I got everything ready and set out for our 35 minute car ride. It wasn't as bad, nor as long as I thought it was going to be, seeing as how I was contracting the whole way, but I was so glad to be there when we arrived. It was about 8:30 am on Saturday morning...

Four days: Photos of Mirabella and her family

Thank you to all who have posted comments about our angel baby; we love reading them. These photos were taken at the hospital today and although we think she looks so sweet, there's nothing like seeing her in person (especially when she is awake!). We look forward to introductions in the days to come. We're going home tomorrow!

Of incredible beauty

Yes, we have a new baby girl! We welcomed Mirabella into our world on Sunday, March 1st at 2:02 am. She weighed in at 7 pounds and 7 ounces and was 21 1/4 inches long. She is healthy and all three of us are doing great! Jeff and I think she is the loveliest little creature we have ever seen, of course!

Mirabella (meer-uh-bell-uh) has been the name we had picked out since before I was pregnant and although there were other names we liked, we never strayed from this one. Martelle (mar-tell) was my nana's middle name; she went by Marty, so Mirabella's middle name is in memory of her. I know she is feeling honored as she looks down upon us from heaven.

We will provide more details and get some additional pictures up eventually, but we're very much enjoying our time together currently at the hospital. Thank you for all the well wishes and kind thoughts we've received! We are in love with our Mirabella!