Raquelle is here!

Raquelle Elizabeth was born Sunday March 5th at 5:49 AM after 41 hours of labor! I was sent home from the hospital 3 times Friday and Saturday because I was not making very fast Progress. Contractions started out 3 min apart Friday at noon and got really strong by about 11 am on Saturday. I could no longer stand the pain so they had to keep me this time. By 4 pm I was at 3.5 cm and Contractions were 2 to 3 min apart, and so strong I was shaking uncontrolably through them. So I begged for an epi (gave up on going natural after the first 28 hours). The epi was the most traumatic part of the whole thing. As they were putting it in, my blood pressure dropped dangerously low and they had to rip it out and give me two shots of epinephrin to raise it back up and then start over. The 2nd try, they put the needle in too deep and punctured the fluid behind the epidural cavity, which caused the fluid between my brain and spinal cord to start leaking. This causes horrible migrain headaches that they say may take 2 weeks to heal. Finally I was numb (except the headache). 3 hours later, I had to go to the bathroom. When the nurses helped me get up I fell down and jarred the epi. From that point on, My right side was totally numb and my left side felt everything. So I had them check me (midnight or so) and I was at 6. They offered to re-do the epi, but the last one had taken an hour and a half and caused both chronic migrains and a bone bruise. So, I ended up with Stadol instead. I was able to sleep and suddenly woke up thinking the baby was falling out. They checked and I was at 8 cm. 30 min later my midwife showed up and I was at 10. So at 3:27 AM I got to start pushing. Raquelle made her enterance at 5:49 AM... 2.5 hours later!!! She weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 19.5 inches long. Due to the traumatic labor and delivory, I'm suppose to have someone with me 24/7 for the next two weeks to help take care of me and Raquelle. The first pictures are up at Kristasdaily.blogspot.com. I will try to have some more up sometime soon, but we still do not have internet on our home computer.