Allison Jean's CRAZY birth story...

Talk about a CRAZY event! I can honestly say that my darling daughter literally almost killed me!

I went in for a routine check up on friday july 25th, and my blood pressure was sky high. 151/100. I was already 2 days overdue and the bp had been creeping up higher all week, so the midwife told me to go ahead and go to the hospital to be induced.

Ken and I got to the hospital around 4pm, and they started everything - around 9pm I ended up getting the first epidural of the night (with a spinal block combination) 2 hours later, the spinal block wore off and I believe the epidural wasn't working at all! They had to keep giving me boluses of pain meds to try to help out. Around 2am or so - I began pushing and pushed for 2.5 hours straight before they called the dr in to check me. Within 5 seconds, he automatically could tell that Ali's head was turned sideways and that was why she wasn't dropping at all. At this time - I had absolutely NO pain relief! So we decided to do a C-Section.

They took me to the OR and had to insert another site for a spinal block again. This time a resident did the procedure and couldn't get it for about 30 min. Finally got it, but it only worked on the left side of my body. We waited and waited but it didn't work, so then they decided to put me under general anesthesia. (Which meant that Ken couldn't come into the OR)

That's all I remember - until I woke up in the ICU. Apparently the story goes... They delivered Allison fine

(Saturday July 26th 0552am - 7 lbs, 12 oz - 18.3/4 inches),

but I had some extra bleeding and then the combination of the high blood pressure and all of the fluids I had to receive overloaded me and I ended up with fluid on my lungs and couldn't breathe on my own. They intubated me and gave me manual breaths with an ambu bag and rushed me to the ICU to be put onto a ventilator. Fortunately by the time we got to the ICU - I came around and didn't have to do the ventilator thing. So - I spent the night in the ICU and didn't get to hold Allison until Sunday, but they brought her down to see me for a few minutes in an isolette bed.

So - that's my crazy story.... Needless to say, I'm completely in love with my daughter. Life has now taken on a new meaning for me, and I'm just glad that I'm still able to be here to share it with her and our new family!!