Ella Elizabeth Malia was born August 22nd, 2008 @ 1:21pm at Wesley Hospital, in Wichita KS.
Weight: 10 lbs 2oz
Length: 22.5 inches
Head: 15 Inches (She’s gonna be smart)
Chest: 15 inches
Abdomen: 13.5 inches
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Our own labor horror story!
After about 2 hours of painful contractions less than 5 minutes apart, Amy and I checked into Wesley Hospital around 11:00AM Thursday morning (August 21st). Measuring at 3 centimeters, where previously at 1, was a very good sign that things were about to start happening. And that’s when the pain got worse. As Ella made her way into the birth canal, she put a lot of pressure on Amy’s sciatic nerve. Amy had planned to attempt a natural childbirth, but the sciatic nerve pain was too intense, so we gave the hospital staff the nod of approval to perform an epidural block. After the block, things seemed to get better, but there was still some pain. 6 hours after checking into the hospital, Amy was now dilated to a 6. As the hours went by, the pain increased and the dilatation stayed the same. Anesthesiologists had tried adjusting Amy’s epidural medicine. They tried giving her a second (and third) epidural block but nothing seemed to take the pain away for longer than about an hour. To get things going, we approved the induction by breaking the amniotic sac. Within the next two hours, Amy had dilated to a 9.5. And.. Stayed there for 2 more painfully excruciating hours until we approved the use of Pitocin to get that final section of cervix dilated. Then the pushing began! 3 hours of pushing later… Amy was sleep deprived, not in the best of attitude, and Ella was still not here. The doctor then attempted to use forceps to help Ella down the birth canal but had no success and said that Ella was too big to fit and a C-Section was needed. We rolled Amy down to the operating room and found that in addition to the epidural block not working previously during the labor, the final epidural block they were trying to use for the C-Section was not working either, because Amy said she was able to feel them cutting into her! At that point, I was told to leave and wait back in the labor room. The doctor administered general anethesia to knock Amy completely out so they could perform an emergency C-section. About 20 minutes later, I had Ella in my arms. And within the next 20 or so minutes Amy was able to meet Ella as well. It was rough, but the 26 hours of labor was worth the wonderful bundle of joyous baby girl Ella!
-Brad