The Whole Story

I realize that I (Seth) have not been extremely forth-coming about the details of Rebekah’s birth, and that many of you would have appreciated more detail. I’m sorry! This post is especially for those of you who want the rest of the story. For those who just want the bottom line, it’s this: Rebekah had a hard time coming into the world, but she’s doing great now!

Here’s the rest of the story:

Friday
Since we had c-sections (unplanned) with Daniel and David, we scheduled a section for Rebekah and that was on Friday. It started off in mid-afternoon normally enough, but once we got to the point of actually pulling Rebekah out we ran into difficulty. She was transverse, with her head hiding behind a lower-than-expected placenta and her feet tucked in out of reach. Since they couldn’t pull her out by her arms, they had to turn her – but that proved to be a hard job. A specialist was called in, as well as some other help, and they came very quickly. As you can imagine, the tension in the room and the extra help running in made for some heart-stopping moments for Mom and Dad! But Rebekah was turned and delivered in a matter of a few minutes – minutes which seemed like ages. She was given oxygen right away to kick-start her breathing, which worked and she started breathing on her own almost immediately. Still, she was quite pale to begin with, but her colour returned steadily through the next few hours. The shock of it gave her high levels of lactic acid in her blood at first (like someone who has just run a marathon), but that steadily returned to normal as well. She also apparently lost some blood through the placenta in the effort to get her out, so they eventually decided to give her a boost of a little extra blood on Friday night.

Saturday
By Saturday morning, Rebekah was back to normal on almost everything – looking and acting like a normal hungry baby. Jess was also recovering quickly and able to get down to the neonatal and start feeding Rebekah herself. Rebekah was very happy about that! Saturday evening they told us that they were still watching Rebekah’s blood suger levels, which were a little low, and they wanted to see more wet nappies. They had her on an IV drip during the night and Jess continued feeing her regularly, so by Sunday morning those issues have cleared up and we expect Rebekah to be moved in to Jessica’s room during the day today after she is cleared by the doctor. Thank you so much for your prayers! There are a few pictures posted in the Gallery, and I assure you there will be more coming!