The Moment We've Been Waiting For...

Hey everyone, the moment we have been waiting for finally happened on Tuesday night the 22nd at 10:47 pm.  Daniel Braden Gallagher was pried from his mommy's uterus...

So we went back to the hospital on the 19th for more blood testing on Michelle.  The results came back and her blood platelet count had dropped again.  The good news was that we were able to go home, but the other, umm, ok news was that we had to come  back on sunday the 20th for another blood test and the good possibility of being admitted.  So the nurse gave us instructions to bring our bags and all the stuff we needed for having a baby and sent us on our way to one last night of rest in our own bed. 

Sunday the 20th we arrived at the hospital at about 10:50 am, with no coffee mind you, and headed up to the maternity ward to get some blood tests done.  When the results came up they started all the paperwork and basically told us to settle in.  I made a bunch of phone calls and the inducing began.  The doctor had Michelle put on a small dose of Patocin to stress test the baby and her. She began to have mild contractions and the baby's heart-rate did fine.  Sunday night they turned off the Patocin and used another medication, I believe it was called Cytocin, to soften her cervix and help her body get ready for labor.  

Monday was pretty much the same, but they gradually increased the Patocin from about 2 mls/hour to 10 mls/hour.  The results of another blood test showed Michelle's platelet count had dropped again, but she was making forward progress and the baby seemed fine so the doctor decided to give it another day.  Our doctor was really hoping that Michelle would 

be able to deliver the baby the "Old-fashion" way and was trying to avoid an unnecessary C-section which I really appreciated.

Tuesday is when things really started to get exciting, Dr. O'Callahan (Killer name by the way!) promised Michelle the baby would be out by day's end.  Michelle was started on Patocin and the waiting game began.  Each time she was checked she was a little more dialated.  Around 1:30 pm she really started to go into intense labor and went for about 2 hours of straight up hard-core contractions.  At about 3:30 she had dialated to about 5-6 and was ready for an epidural!  

Our biggest concern about the epidural was that it would slow and possibly stop labor.  Not so with Michelle!  She gradually progressed to about 8 centimeter and the doctor had her push once to see if it would move things along. Because Michelle had progressed so good the doctor gave her an hour to see if anything would change.  During that hour the baby took a turn for the better and it looked like everything was going to move forward.  Dr. O'Callahan checked again and Michelle was at 9 centimeters and really close to full dialation.  So the doctor gave us another hour to progress, but she wanted Michelle to start pushing with every contraction.  

When the doctor came back, Michelle was doing good, but the baby's heart rate decelerated at the end of every contraction.  Michelle was fully dialated but the baby was still really high and we couldn't really figure out why.  The doctor had Michelle push for a while, but the baby's heart rate began to take longer and longer to recover after the contractions.  The doctor decided it was time for the c-section.

The c-section went really good, I believe most of it was caught on video, and we disco

vered why baby Daniel was struggling to come out.  He was huge!!!  Dr. O'Callahan exclaimed, "You're having a three month old!" and another doctor laughed and said, "That's not a baby, that's a toddler!"  I watched a good portion of the surgery through a reflection and when they pulled Daniel Braden out, I was shocked at how big he looked!!!  Everyone took bets on how much he weighed, but most were conservative around the 9 and a half pound mark.  He weighed in at 9lbs 14 oz!  

Everything has been great so far, he is very healthy, just a mild case of jaundus and Michelle is recovering wonderfully. We will be at the hospital until Saturday so I am not sure if we will get another chance to blog until then.  I'm off back to the hospital to go take care of my family.

-dg