Hannah has arrived!

At the Drs. appt. on Wednesday, we were told that Hannah's head still had not descended and a C-section was recommended. She wasn't breach, but her head hadn't dropped into the birth canal. Compounding this, Hannah's weight was estimated at over 9 lbs. on wk 40 and so we figured we had a ten lb. baby to birth. The C-section seemed like a pretty reasonable course...


We drove back home to get our things; returning to the hospital, Julia was admitted at 5:30 on Wednesday night. Hannah was born at 9:25 PM on January 2nd. 2008. She was only 8 lbs. and 14 oz and 21" long. Still big, but not the scary 10+ we were concerned about.

A funny note about the timing of Hannah's arrival: The nurses had emphasized how many births were taking place and the resulting strain on the anaesthesiologist's schedule. This fact not withstanding, Hannah was born during the Fiesta Bowl half-time. The two surgeons came bounding into the surgical corridor, recounting game plays and speculating about the second half. They hurriedly dawned their scrubs, washed, and five minutes later were presenting us with our new baby girl! Adding further to the levity, the surgeons made casual bets on Hannah's weight as they extracted her from the womb. The anaesthesiologist happily directed Paul concerning when to look as Hannah was pulled out with two fingers, one at the base of her head and the other under her chin. He also helped with pictures after the baby was cleaned up and presented to her parents. I don't mean to make the Drs. sound unprofessional, they definitely had the script memorized. It actually served to mitigate our anxiety.


Hannah's first breaths were pretty strained as she had some amniotic fluid in her lungs. Her nurse quickly inserted a clear thin flexible suction hose into Hannah's nose, threaded it down her throat and began extracting clear liquid. This was repeated a couple of times, but some of the liquid remained. Hannah's spent her first night in the "real world" under a heat lamp in the Transitional NICU. We were a little concerned with her shallow grunting breaths, but the staff assured us it was typical and that she would reabsorb the liquid in less than a day.

Paul was able to visit Hannah a few times in the NICU, but Julia only visited once as she was wheeled between her surgical recovery room and the postpartum ward. By mid morning on Thursday, Julia had become quiet irritable about the fact that she had not yet held Hannah. Tears were briefly shed as we walked from the NICU nursery to the main nursery asking for our daughter. Our request to see her was untimely, as she was just transferred out of the NICU and into the neonatal nursery, where typical vital checks were under way. At around 10 AM Hannah arrived in our hospital room. Her skin tone was much less flushed and her cry was blooming to its full intensity. Our beautiful baby was finally ours to hold!