The Steely's: Lily Anne Steely is here!

Lily is here! She arrived 10/17/2011 @ 6:40 am @ Naval Air Station Jacksonville Hospital. She was delivered by Dr. Ann Mclendon, Dr. Mcnair, Liezel a RN, Scott, and Racine Brooks one of my bestest friends here in Jacksonville.

**Not too graphic, but it is about my labor so if u don't want 2 read this scroll down 2 the bottom for pics!**

The story of my labor...

I woke up 10/16/2011 about 1:45am feeling slight contractions, about an hour later I started timing them and and they were about 5 to 6 minutes apart. I woke Scott up and let him know. I took a shower and called the Labor and Delivery ward at the hospital to let them know that we were on the way. We got to the hospital about 6 am and they put us in a room. They had the Dr. on call check me out and he stated that I was 3 cm dilated but my contractions were not in a continuous enough of a pattern for me to be admitted quite yet. The nurse at the time Darien stated that I was in latent labor and I needed to go home and rest. She thought that I would probably return about 3 am in full blown labor. She told me to go home, eat, take a shower, take some Tylenol benadryl and try to sleep. So I came home about 10 am and did just that. But it was so odd, I would sleep but every five minutes I would wake up and have a contraction that hurt so bad. About 2 pm I felt a pop. I called Scott to come here and I told him that I thought that my water had broke. He then called the labor and delivery and we were on our way back to the hospital again.

Walking through the hallway to get to the elevators a big gush came down and the pain began to be even more intense that Scott was having to hold me up. We made it to the elevators and made our way up to the 6th floor again. They could tell this was real labor now and moved me straight into the delivery room side of the floor. They checked me again and I was 6 cm dilated. They wanted to know what my birth plan was. I told them that I wanted an epidural and they began to get the process rolling on that.

First they had to start an IV on my hand the first try wasn't very successful and so I had to be stuck again. They drew the labs they needed and sent them to the lab STAT, and started a fluid IV. They proceeded to call the anesthesiologist Capt. Turk. I was begging for something for relief I went over all the paperwork so fast that I can barely remember reading any of it. And signed my name that if you were to look at it now looks nothing like my signature. Capt. Turk came in and began prepping me for the epidural. They were still waiting on the labs to come back two hours later! Capt. Turk was becoming irritated and wondered what and the world was going on. The lab that they were waiting on was just a CBC, which is a complete blood count. Checks your white and red blood cell counts etc. a VERY routine blood test. He asked what my last lab was but it was from back in August and was too old to use. Another hour goes by and they finally get the results back. And Capt. Turk began to place the epidural.

Basically I sat on the side of the bed and hunched over a pillow while Scott helped hold me still in the front. All I felt was a slight sting from the numbing medication and then some pressure from when he was placing the IV for the epidural. He pushed a test dose and I felt some coldness and began to feel relief immediately! I am pro epidural! No offense to anyone who chooses not to use one and go all natural. More power to you, I personally could not tolerate the pain.

So then they sat me back and the wait began. Scott ran home fast to let Roxy out and to grab all the baby stuff. They told me to rest but due to the excitement I began to call people and let them know that Lily was almost here. I called my best-friends Krystal Engle, and Racine Brooks to come up to the hospital to visit. They got there between 8pm and 9 pm and hung out with Scott and I. Krystal had brought her daughter Abby which was fun to watch her play around and it was a nice distraction. Unfortunately, Krystal did not have a sitter for Abby Lou and had to leave and left around 10 pm. Racine was going to leave as well, but I told her that if she wanted to stay for the delivery that she could. Not ever seeing one she opted to stay.

Throughout the night I had to be re-positioned from left to right because the babies heart rate would drop a little to low for their liking or would be too high. It seemed like every hour I was being shifted around. They also placed me on 10 liters of oxygen to see if that would help as well. Dr. Mclendon came in and checked me and I was at 9 cm. Now they were just waiting to me to have the urge to push. I also began to feel nauseous which they said was a good thing because vomiting would help the baby to come down as well. I did get sick, which was horrible because the last thing that I had eaten was a sausage biscuit from Dunken Doughnuts @ 10 am and I didn't even eat the whole thing. So it was mostly stomach acid which is horrible to throw up!

Hours went by and still nothing. They were checking my temperature and it was slowly increasing. Because it had been so long since my water had broken it was making me run a slight fever. They hooked up an IV antibiotic and also started me on Pitocin to help get my contractions closer together so that we could start pushing. They also told me that after Lily was born that they would like to place her on IV antibiotics too to be proactive in case she developed the same infection that I was experiencing.

Finally I began to feel somewhat of some pressure. It was kinda hard to tell being numb from the waist down but, I finally began to feel something. We began pushing, all different ways, center, left, right, and we even used a squatting bar with a sheet tied to it so I could pull and curl over to push the baby down. Scott was on the left of me and the RN, Liezle was on the right. Racine was cheering from the side and would step in when Scott stepped away to use the restroom etc. About 6 am Dr. Mclendon came in with Dr. Mcnair and that's when I knew that this was going to happen. They got dressed in there blue throw away scrubs and began setting everything up. Lily wasn't coming down fast enough and her heart rate was dropping so they kept urging me to push harder and harder. They warned me that if she did not come out pretty soon that they were going to have to do a c-section. I started to get scared and was more determined than ever that I was going to have this baby and not via surgery.

They have an option to use a mirror to help deliver and at first I was against it but after they started talking surgery I decided to try it. I cannot tell you how much that helped! The next thing I knew Lily was here. Lily Anne Steely was born 10/17/2011 @ 6:40 am, 7 lbs 5 oz, 19 and 3/4 in long.

Scott cut the umbilical cord and when they weighed her, she peed on the scale! They bundled her up and gave her to Scott to give to me for the first time. I was beside myself with happiness and tears of joy were just streaming down my face. I was in disbelief that Scott and I had made this beautiful little girl and that we were now parents. It was and still is such an awesome feeling.

I will spare everyone with all the other details over the next three days that occurred, to make a long story short we were moved to the other side of the ward, the Maternal Infant Unit where we had our own personal room and I stayed in with Lily till we were discharged Wednesday after noon.

Now the stuff you all REALLY wanna see, pictures!