On March 11, 2001... our little Shooting Star was born. Cheyenne Dakotah Larson was born at 11:51 am with a flourish. She was 3 pounds 15 1/2 ounces and was a very long 17 inches.
The overall labor process was relatively easy... from what I'm told. To me, it was awful... but the pain does quickly fade. I was admitted into the hospital on March 3 with a 90% effaced cervix and major contractions. I was quickly given three shots of trebutaline to stop the contractions. But, they didn't stop so I was transported to a different hospital since my hospital didn't have a neo-natal unit. I was transported to a hospital in Duluth, which is an hour and a half away. Once there, I didn't have any more contractions for almost a week. I was given oral trebutaline to keep the contractions stopped. That worked until the following Friday and then I started having contractions. So, I was put back on an IV and given magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions again. That worked for a couple of hours and that was it. Saturday night, I started having major contractions at about 2 am. Sunday morning, my doctor decided to go ahead and let me go into labor. At about 9 am, I was brought to a birthing room and my cervix was only about 2 mm. At 11:15, my cervix was dilated to about 4 mm and none of my contractions were showing up on the monitors. So, my doctor decided to try an intra-uterine monitor to try and pick up the contractions. It took about 20 minutes to get the monitor in... and then I immediately felt like pushing. SO... I went from 4 mm to her head crowing in five minutes... Literally :) The resident actually had to put a hand up to try and stop her from falling on the floor... after all, my doctor didn't even have her surgery clothes on.
Cheyenne was immediately transferred to neo-natal... which is where she will be until probably April. She isn't on a ventilator and only has an oxygen tube in her nose. She also has a feeding tube through her nose to her stomach. Other than that, she is still on an IV and has monitors to watch her heart rate and breathing and stuff like that. Until last night (March 14) she didn't tolerate her feedings at all. The nurses would give her 4 cc's of food and get back about 8 or 9 cc's of mucous, food, and air. BUT... things are looking much better because last night and today she hasn't had more than 2 cc's of aspirated "shtuph." She has developed jaundice, so now she gets to tan 24/7. All in all... she has no major problems except that she is small.
As a mother... I've found that the hardest thing in the world is to walk away and leave her in her incubator. The whole time I was pregnant, I prayed that she would hurry up and come... now I wish with all of my heart that she was still in me. I even miss the rib kicks *smile* A lot of things change when you're pregnant... but even more change when your baby arrives. I'm so amazed at all of my feelings and emotions... and I'm even more amazed that this little beautiful baby girl... came from me. I can't believe that she is here... it's like she wasn't supposed to be here yet... and here she is. She's an amazing baby... and a huge treasure.
We will update this site often, I'm sure. Daddy seems to have been overcome by the frillies... and the pictures. It's kinda cool to see a teenie tiny baby girl wrap her daddy around a pinky finger that is the size of my fingernail *grin* BUT... it's better to have it this way then any other way :) Thank you for all of the prayers and thoughts... Cheyenne and Mommy and Daddy appreciate it a lot :)
