Welcome Baby Haven - Aug. 7, 2007

Sharli started having contractions on Monday (6th) evening. She thought that they were only Braxton-Hicks, but Neil kept telling her that he thought she was going into labor. He also reminded her that Tuesday was grandma Shirley's birthday.

Tuesday morning came with a few more contractions throughout the night. But, nothing painful or even noteworthy, so we thought. We had a doctor's appointment already scheduled for 11:00 am, and while we were there, Sharli had two contractions, spaced about 4-5 minutes apart. With the baby being Frank breach, we knew that natural birth was unlikely, and a c-section would be necessary. The doctor on call (our OB was, of course, on vacation) asked us if we wanted to have this baby in the afternoon. We were very shocked to say the least. The doctor said that we could go home, but more than likely would be back, checking in to the hospital, by midnight anyway. She actually said that the on-call OB would be much appreciative if we went in to surgery in the afternoon, rather than middle of the night.

After frantically running home and grabbing her dufflebag and doing a quick once around the house, we headed to the hospital. By 2:30 pm, Sharli was prepped and ready for surgery. The nurses and anesthesiologist had a difficult time of getting her IV in as well as the spinal. The IV took 5 pokes, while the spinal was 'only 4'. Neil had to wait outside the OR and watch through the glass while the doctor kept poking her spine. Sharli just about crushed the bones of the delivery doctor's hand while going through the spinal procedure.

The delivery doctor began Sharli's surgery at about 3:00, and by 3:11, our little Haven was shown the really bright outside world. The doc's first words were, "wow, this baby has been breach for a very long time." Her body was folded to where her legs were bent straight up with her little feet by her ears. No bend in the knees, just a very uncomfortable looking position, to say the least.

Upon cleaning her and doing a few tests, the nurses handed her to us for the next few days in the hospital. She entered the world at a whopping 6lbs 3oz. and a basketball player's height of 17".