Mackenzie's Early Arrival!!

Well this week has definitely been a week of ups and downs!! The high light of course was the surprisingly early arrival of our daughter Mackenzie. She arrived December 3, 10:42pm, weighing in at 7 pounds 9 ounces (they rounded the ounces up) and 19.5 inches long!
I think Tuesday's events may have triggered Mackenzie's early arrival. I got my usual phone call from John checking up on me. Unfortunately he had bad news for me telling me that he wouldn't be back in Bahrain in time to catch his flight. This was the news I had been dreading from the time he told me that he had to go back out to sea. As you can imagine I didn't take the news to good and after getting his flights changed I was a mess for the rest of the day. I had my hospital tour that night so I got myself together and went there, which was probably a good thing because I didn't realise that I'd be needing it the next day!! As for the inducement I hadn't even gotten around to asking if I could change the date, so I guess maybe I had accepted that John wouldn't be here.
So Tuesday night I barely slept. I wasn't in any pain or anything like that I just couldn't sleep. I had to get up early the next morning for an appointment so when I got out of bed I began to leak some liquid (to put it politely). I noticed that it was pinkish and I guess I realised what was happening, so I calmly got my bags packed, got everything into the car, got myself dressed, had breakfast, then drove to the hospital. I went to my appointment and was told to go home and monitor my liquid loss and come back if it became a lot. I wasn't too happy with that and when I got up I felt more liquid, so I told the nurse and she told me just to go to labor and delivery just to be on the safe side. I went there and was put in a room to wait for a doctor. When the doctor came I explained the situation and she said she'd check me out and see what she thought. She tells me to sit up a little and scoot forward and when I did that I lost quite a bit of fluid and she tells me that I'm staying as the baby is coming.
The rest of the day went by rather quietly. My contractions came on, but it took me forever to dilate completely. My friend Brittny arrived in the early evening and we just hung out until around 10:30 when they came in to check me and told me I was ready to go. I had been in an epidural enhanced spell and once they told me that the nerves started to kick in!! I started to feel sick and they let me throw up then I started pushing. I threw up again, then before I knew it Mackenzie was up on my chest! The epidural was the best thing ever because I really didn't feel much at all!
I still can't believe she's here! She's so perfect and we have both settled in at home reasonably well. She's a bit of a night owl which at times is tough, especially when I just want to go to sleep! I'm actually a little amazed how well I've adapted, especially doing it on my own. I have this level of patience and calm that has taken over me and so far I think I'm handling doing it on my own quite well! I'm not going to lie though, I am so looking forward to John coming home to help out! He should be here on Wednesday, but I won't rest easy about that until I see him!! I don't get much time to do anything...at the moment I typing one handed because she'll only sleep if I hold her. I do have some photos that were taken at the hospital that you can all see on a website, but I'll have to give you that when I'm a little more organized!!


Welcome to the world!!

Testing out her lungs...they work great too by the way!

Her first bath

Foot print time

She didn't want to get weighed

Brittny who has helped us out so much...thanks Brittny we truly do appreciate it!

One day old

At home and over the photo taking!!