Hailey Nicole's first 24

Below is a slide show of pictures from Hailey's first 24 hours. Be patient as this is my first time creating a slide show and placing it on the blog.

Hailey Nicole Mickey

You may want to sit down for this post.....it is a long one.

So I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday night at 7pm, at which time I checked in and got situated in the Labor, Delivery, Recovery room. Once I was situated, I was given cervidil, which dilates the cervix 3 to 4 cm's. It should take 4-6 hours to accomplish this task. I was given the cervidil around 9:30pm. They also started with very small amounts of pitocin to help start induce my labor. Between the cervidil and the nurse coming in once every hour, I did not sleep at all that night.

Once the cervidal dilated my cervix 3 cm's, (Thursday morning at 6:30 am) they increased the pitocin by 2 units every 15 to 20 minutes. Dr. Avery came in about 11 am to break my water but was unable to do so. Hailey's head was so far down, Dr. Avery could not reach my cervix. So I sat on the birthing ball for about an hour and then Dr. Avery came back. He really didn't think that he was going to be able to break my water but after a few tries....he did it. He broke my water at 1:18pm. Once they broke my water and was still increasing the pitocin, my contractions got stronger but not too terrible. I asked for some pain medicine and that did the trick for a while. After a couple of hours, I was so tired from not sleeping the night before and the long day that I had thus far......I just could not handle the pain. I decided that I was going to get an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and once the epidural kicked in....I was good to go (so I thought).

A couple of hours went by and Dr. Bane stopped by to visit me once she left the office. She checked and I was only 5 cm's dilated. They also noticed that every time I had a contraction, Hailey's heart rate dropped a little. Nothing to be overly concerned about but something to watch. They placed an oxygen mask on me for a little bit and it helped Hailey's heart rate. Dr. Bane said that she was going home to eat dinner, say hello to the kids and she would be back for the night. Within this time, a shift change occurred. The new nurse was now watching my status. After a little while, she told me that she did not like that Hailey's heart rate was still dropping when I had a contraction so she decided to call Dr. Bane. The nurse came back and said Dr. Bane would be at the hospital in 10 minutes and also turned off the pitocin. When Dr. Bane got to the hospital, she checked and I was still only 5 cm's dilated.

Now things changed 360 degrees. Dr. Bane said that since I was only 5 cm's dilated and Hailey's heart rate was dropping every time I had a contraction that she could not wait hours for me to dilate to 10 cm's. If I was 8 or 9 cm's dilated, things would be different. With all that being said, she said that I would have to have a c-section. From the time that she made that statement to the time I was on the table to have the c-section, it was only about 30 minutes. Things were CRAZY to say the least.

Hailey Nicole Mickey arrived on January 8, 2009 at 9:26pm. She was 9 lbs and 22 inches long.

Here is a video of Hailey's first moments.