OK- I know this is a little out of order, but for some reason, I have been thinking a lot about when Emma was born. I don't know if it is just because I am pregnant, but I have been having a lot of dreams about that day, and when my mind wanders off at work- it usually finds itself among some distant thoughts of my little baby Emma on the first day we met. Anyway, I decided to write a little bit about it since it is on my mind, and since I haven't ever really written about it.

Now, part of the reason I haven't ever written about it is because I don't really like to talk about it. It was a wonderful day with so much joy- but Ross was not there, and that will forever be a little heart breaking to me. He wanted to be- we both DESPERATELY wanted him to be, but it just didn't seem to be in the cards for us. It was so hard for me to hold OUR new little angel and know that Ross would not be able to have those same feelings for her until he could get on out here. It was a weird feeling to be a single mom (that is how I was classified in the psychology section of my maternity folder).


Anyway- on with the day. During my entire pregnancy with her, Emma was a little whirlwind in the womb. All of her ultrasounds showed her swimming and kicking andwaving like crazy! At about 18 weeks I actually started to feel her moving, and she never stopped. There was always some kind of movement, and that was a lot of fun for me. Well, about 2 days before she was born (it was a Saturday) she stopped moving. This really worried me, because it was so rare for her to ever be still. After about 3 hours of only feeling 2 or three feeble kicks, I had my mom take me to the hospital. They did a heart-rate test on me and the baby and said that everything looked OK. I wasn't buying it. I KNEW that something was wrong. Well, before the nurses (the dumb jerks who just wanted to get me out of there since I was the only patient there) could kick me out they had to have a doctor come and check me out. Well, it just so happens that the on-call doctor was no other than my OBGYN, Dr. Wayne Young. He looked at the tests and said everything looked good- but I stopped him and said, "Doctor, there is something not right here. Are there any other tests you can do." He said that he trusted my instincts, but really didn't think that anything was of immediate concern. He did however schedule an ultrasound for me on the following Monday, and told me to come in if I had any pains, or if she went more than 5 hours without moving at all.


On Monday morning he took the ultrasound and found that her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. It wasn't terribly serious, but it did mean that they had to do a C-Section, and soon. He had me take a stress test for me and the baby, and when it showed that Emma's heart rate had dropped since being in there on Saturday, he scheduled the C-Section for later that day.


My dad took work off (something rare for him) and my mom skipped her class at school that night (something rare for her) and all of my sisters found their way over to the hospital to be with me. My best freind even got someone to cover her shift at work so that she could be there as well. Over the next 2 days (I only stayed there 2 nights) I had A LOT of visitors and well-wishers coming to see me. One of the nurses asked me if I was lonely without Ross (a pretty dumb and pointless question if you ask me! What am I gonna say to that? "Oh no- I love having the love of my life gone for one of the most mometous times in our married lives. ) and one of the other nurses replied, "Good heavens- have you seen all of her visitors? The daddy would have just been in the way." I am very lucky to have so many friends and family members who love me so much. It was hard not having Ross there, but it was also nice to know that I was not being forgotten.

This is my mom trying out her new position of Grandma.

Aunt Heather

Aunt Caulene

The whole family all together. Ross and I were on the phone quite a bit that day!

My dad took these before I was even out of the O.R. He followed them down to the room where they clean off the gunk before they bring the babies to the proud mommies.

This was just before they wheeled me into the O.R. That nurse's name is Rayden, and she was FANTASTIC!!! She was one of my nurses when I went to the hospital last week, and she was just as amazing then too- she is VERY good at her job and she made me feel much less nervous about the whole thing.