Elyse's B-day story

Elyse Caroline Dyer was born at 6:46pm on February 2, 2009. She weighed 6 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 19.2 inches long. She is the most beautiful child ever to grace the planet. EVER!

On February 1, 2009, Jason and I headed to the hospital for Elyse's birthday--there was not a lot of action Sunday night--the real fun started on Monday. I had been dilating steadily all morning--when I reached 4 cm, I started thinking of asking for my epidural. I was trying to be tough and hold on for a while on my own. Big mistake. By 11:30, I requested the epidural. I was told I was next in line and that it would be 15 minutes or so. As luck would have it, there were 3 emergencies that popped up in the hospital between my request and my epidural which was administered TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER. By that time, I was pyschotic. I could no longer speak English, my olny means of communication was a repetative moan. The anthesthesiologist actually asked me if I spoke English (what a skank!). After the epidural, I regained the ability to communicate in my native tongue, only to find out that Elyse was not descending into the birth canal. I had dilated all the way to an 8, but she was still at a minus three station. To quote my doctor "Elyse is in Dallas and she needs to be in Houston." So, I agreed to a C-section and was wheeled off about an hour and a half later. The C-section was scary as hell. I have never had surgery and had no idea what to expect. I think I had a mixture of a bad reaction to the anthesthesia and a huge case of nerves, so I was shaking violently the whole time. There was some strange techno music jamming in the operating room, which did nothing to dispel the freakiness of the event. Jason came in in his "bunny suit" as they called it, and was able to watch the whole procedure which only lasted about 2 minutes. He said Elyse came out, took a deep breath and then cooly looked around. Then she screamed bloody murder, which means "hello!" in newbron language. They popped Elyse over the tent so I could get a look at her. Jason said she was perfect. It happened quite quickly, then Jason was asked to leave the room. Apparently, my placenta retracted and the doctors were having a hard time putting Humpty back together again. After about 30 minutes, I was rolled in to the recovery room. It turned out that Elyse was facing the wrong way to descend into the birth canal--she was "sunny side up" as Dr. Cook described it. A natural birth would have been a disaster.And thus, the great adventure of the Dyer Made began.