April 8th!

Started the pitocin this morning to get my contractions going more and I'm about 3 cms dialated so far. My dad and Rachel took the day off of work to be at the hospital with us for the birth so the whole family is with me in the labor and delivery room today and we are just chatting and hanging out waiting for the time till I feel I need to be alone and breathe through the contractions with just my mom and hubby with me. I didn't have an epidural with Leilani my 5 year old so I wanted to try and not get one this time too, I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and I hate needles so that's why I always avoid the epidural. I wasn't going to close the door on getting it completely this time because I was told the induction could take several days and Paige wouldn't come down the birth canal on her own so I would just see how everything was going before I made my decision. I wasn't being checked very often and my contractions were starting to get pretty intense so I decided to have the nurse check me to see how things were progressing and how much longer I had to go and when she checked me I was only at like 5 cms and she told me it would probably be another 4-6 hours before I was ready to push so I decided it was time to kick everyone out of the room and get the pain shot through my IV so I could get some rest between contractions like I did with Leilani so I wouldn't be exhausted when it was time to push. So as I did with Leilani I did with this labor also I would dose off for a few mins and wake up breathing but this time I never completely dosed off like last time because the contractions seemed to be so much closer together than with Leilani so I would start to finally fall asleep and then wake up breathing and Jonathan and my mom would hold my hand. Within maybe 20 mins. if even that long I started doing my breathing exercises pretty intensely like hehehehe hooooo instead of hehe hoo lol and Jonathan and my mom both thought I think it might be time and right as they though that I said I think I'm ready to push so they called the dr in and they hurried up and set up everything as fast as they could and sure enough I had went from 5 -10 cms in like 20 mins. and was ready to push. During the pushing I didn't know what was going on but I literally felt like I was going to die and was delivering a 20 pound baby or something. My mom kept saying I think she needs more oxygen because I didn't look very good and they were just focusing on getting Paige out. As you see in the ultrasound picture with her chubby arm she also had shoulders like a football player and got stuck. We had discussed with my dr that if her heart rate was going down and there was a chance she wouldn't survive the birth we would go in for an emergency c-section to have a better chance for a live brith because it was so important to us because she had to be alive to donate her heart valves and liver and she had stayed alive the whole 9 months so we wanted to meet her alive if at all possible. Well her heart rate stayed high even during the time of being stuck and having to be pulled out she was so strong. When she was finally out and they put her hat on her head they laid her right on me and we were all crying and so happy she was still living, we kept just saying Thank you Jesus because that was truly a miracle after such a complicated and difficult delivery down the birth canal. Rose and my mom and Jonathan were all taking tons of pictures and everyone was crying and were just amazed she was still breathing. All the family was waiting outside the door because they also didn't think she would make it out alive or they thought she would die right away so they wanted to make sure they were right there to meet her as soon as I was ready to have them all come in. Everyone came in to meet her and were just in awe of how beautiful and perfect she looked, you couldn't even really tell there was something wrong with her when she had her hat on and she looked so much like her Big Sister Leilani. Her eyes were pretty swollen from the delivery but other than that she was just beautiful. Our photographer that was supposed to come take pictures couldn't come till 9 pm and we didn't want to wait that long because she was born at 4:44 pm and we didn't know how long she would be alive so I'm not sure who but I'm guessing Laura found another photographer that was already at the hospital and she was going to come up right away to take pics so Laura and my wonderful nurse Julia got me all dressed and ready really quick and we got some awesome pics from the photographer and Rose who was also taking tons of wonderful pics at the same time. It was all like a dream because she was still with us and we were told that would most likely not happen, so we just kept having to thank God for this little Miracle he had given us. When the photographer left we had family come back in and got pics with each of the families with Paige seperately and they each got to hold her. The Hoods and the Hales came and my best friend Marietta also came right after we had got all the pics taken. Laura from String of Pearls took her turn to hold Paige and she rubbed her little cheek and was talking to her telling her about her daughter Pearl who she would meet up in Heaven and to tell her hello for her and Paige just laid there and said uh huh in this cutest little undescribeable voice like she actually heard her and was agreeing with her about Heaven and Pearl (I'll post the video of it once we find out who actually got it on their camera because several got their cameras out to capture the sweet moment). I tried to sit there and eat some dinner as Paige was just passed around the room with different family members and they all told her how much they loved her and how beautiful she was and I just sat there and watched everyone love on her as she still was breathing. I can't remember what time people left but I know it was late and we were just enjoying all the time with her and Rose decided to bring in a cradle for her to sleep in and a heart rate monitor machine to hook her up to so we would know when she was passing by an alarm hooked up to her instead of not sleeping at all and making sure she was still breathing all night long. I still didn't sleep well that first night because I was constantly checking on her and watching the monitor and being woke up every 4 hours for ibuprofen. The reason for the monitor was because we needed to know when to let donor alliance know it was time because in order to donate she would need to be in the operating room an hour after she had passed. Donor Alliance actually stayed the whole night at the hospital thinking she would pass during the night but nope our strong little baby girl was a fighter and she kept her heart rate in the low 100's. Something I forgot to mention was when she was born we also needed her to weigh at least 6 pounds to be able to donate and when my dr looked at her she said oh yeah shes at least that she is chubby, well when they weighed her she only weighed 4 lbs 8 ounces so we were kind of sad that she would only be able to donate 1 of the items but when Rose talked to Donor Alliance she came back and told us they were going to allow her to donate anyways, talk about a flood of tears and thank you Jesus coming from us. God is so good and he kept showing us so many miracles. My nurses were so touched by our family,story and Paige fighting to stay alive. They would always come in and talk to her and were so sweet to us and they treated us like family, even when they weren't working they would call to check on us and were so surprised that Paige was still holding on.