birth story

I went into labor probably around noon on thursday, and I guess I finally realized it was the real thing at 4 or 5. Decided it was time to go to the hospital around 9pm and was admitted at about 10:30 or 11:00. 5 hours later it was time to start pushing. She was stubborn to say the least. After 1 1/2 hours of pushing we finally got the meet our little girl. She didn't have a vigorous cry that I was expecting. They worked with her in the room for a while, giving her some oxygen and helping her out with the bag. I couldn't see a lot, but her color was not improving, so Tessa and Scott went to the nursery. After some more oxygen, lots of suctioning and a chest x-ray, it was determined that she had some fluid in her lungs and also a pneumothorax and pneumomediastinum (pretty much a small collapsed lung which allowed air to escape around her lungs and around her heart). The pediatrican explained that her first breath has to be huge to get that fluid out, and the pressure was a little too much for her lungs to take, causing the leaking of air around the lungs and heart. They kept her on oxygen with some added nitrogen for 24 hours, although she was a lot better after 6 hours. The chest x-ray that next morning showed some persistent fluid in the lungs, but the other findings had resolved, and she was doing great. We go to our pediatrician tomorrow, and hopefully he will have a good report as well.