Claire's Dr's appointment was this morning at 9am. It went ok. She now weighs 8 lbs 4 oz and is 20 inches long. She has gotten so big! I had a few questions for Dr. Ngo. Claire has a little bit of a rash on her back, but Dr. Ngo just thinks it's an irritation of some sorts. I also was concerned about something that was on her umbilical cord. I'm glad I asked because it turned out to be an Umbilical Granuloma, which is a piece of tissue that has mucus in it. She chemically burned it off with Silver Nitrate. She has already fallen off. The chemical makes it peel and turn red so I have to put Neosporin on it. She got her 2nd Hep B shot today. She did pretty good. Once the nurse stuck her her face turned really red and she sucked in a breath and held it for awhile. Then she started screaming. After I was able to pick her up though she stopped crying. She slept from 10am to about 2pm. She only woke up at 11:30 to eat. She doing really good though.

We also had to put her on prescription drops for colic because she was painfully gasey. She a lot better though. The drops are starting to work. That's it for now. Her next appointment is October 16th at 10:30am.

Claire's umbilical cord fell off the other day. It's great because now we can really bathe her. She likes that a lot better than the sponge baths. She doesn't even cry when we bathe her now. We slept in our house in Vidor last night for the first time. It was cool. We put Claire in her room, but she wasn't having it. Finally at 2am I just put her in our bed,  and she slept until 6am.

We won't have internet for awhile so this site won't be updated for awhile. Claire has an appointment on Wednesday so I'll do my best to update around then.

Everything is good! I arrived at the hospital at 6am Monday to be induced. They started me on Pitocin at 8am. The nurse checked me said I was 2 cm dilated and 60% effaced, even though Dr. Long said I was 90% effaced. She kept turning the Pitocin up every 20 minutes but the contractions weren't getting worse. She checked me again at 1pm and I was 3 cm and 80% effaced. Then she checked again at 5pm and I was 4 cm and 80% effaced. She called Dr. Long and he said he would come by after he saw patients at this office and break my water, but at 7:30pm my water broke on it's own. After that the contractions were a 10 on a 1 to 10 pain scale. I didn't get an epidural though. I didn't want one at all. I was given Nubain when I was 9 cm, without my permission which made me very mad, but that didn't help with the pain. All it did was make me VERY tired, I still felt every bit of every contraction. From the time my water broke to the time she was out was about 2 hours and 20 minutes. It went really fast after that. Dr. Long barely had time to put his gloves on because she was crowned for a good 5 minutes before he was there. I could have had her about 10 to 15 minutes earlier if he had been there. Claire had to be suctioned out after she was born because she had mucus in her lungs. I had to be stitched up because I tore in 2 places. I bled more than I should have so I was weak and unstable after I delivered. My blood pressure dropped really low all night and my iron is really low. When I was discharged it was 7.1. The doctor on call that discharged me said that if it were in the 6 range I would have bad a blood transfusion. I'm just doubling my iron pill though.

Before I finish this journal entry I want to clear up some confusions and lies about delivery that have been told to me all my life. I have been told that pushing when you are dilated to 10 cm feels good because it takes away the pressure. Well...they were wrong! The pushing hurt more than anything that happened that day. It felt like I was going to tear everywhere, which I did. Yea, very painful! Thanks for reading this and keeping in touch!

Yesterday after church I thought I was leaking amniotic fluid so I asked a friend at church, who leaked with her first baby, what I should do. She told me to call the doctor. When I got home we called the on call doc at the hospital, and she told us to go in just to be evaluated. When we got there they hooked me all up and did a Nitrozine test to see if it was amniotic fluid, which is wasn't. It was my mucus plug falling out. Then they checked me. I was still 80% effaced and 1 cm dilated. They had me walk for an hour and checked me again. I was about 90 to 95% effaced and 2 cm dilated, but I wasn't contracting regularly so they sent us home.

I went walking/jogging this morning and still nothing. I guess Claire is content where she is for now. I'll keep everyone updated though.