Tues Aug 5 (Day 66) & Wed Aug 6 (Day 67)

There's not much to say about today (Tues Aug 5), so I'm going to skip right onto Wednesday, August 6.  (and to that effect, please pretend that it already IS Wednesday if you're reading this Tuesday night after it is posted)  By the time most of you read this, it will be Wednesday anyway!

On December 4, 1995, I took a pregnancy test after I got home from work.  It was positive!  Larry & I had been trying to have a baby and I'd taken a few tests, all coming up inconclusive or negative...and yet, I had all the 'symptoms' of pregnancy.  I guess it just took a little while for the hormones to build up enough to turn a home pregnancy test positive.  It was late in the evening and Larry was already gone on patrol (he was a cop at the time), but I called the dispatcher & asked them to have him come by the house.  [Remember, this was during the day that cell phones were still the size of a small brief case & not everyone had one.]  He came home shortly after & I shared the news with him.  He in turn got on his police radio & announced the good news to all the other officers on duty that night!  :)  And he jokes that later in the night, he used the overhead speaker on the car to announce it to the neighborhoods he patrolled through.  (I don't think that he REALLY did that, though.)

Fast forward....my due date of July 31, 1996 came & went.  My OB decided it was time to induce labor.  I was horribly miserable in the unbearable Texas heat.  My hands, face & feet were swollen badly & my blood pressure was inching upward at every doctor visit.  It was time to get this little ladybug out.  On Tuesday morning, August 6th, I went to the hospital to be induced.  After waiting a little while for them to get a clean labor room for me, I was taken to my LDR room at Mother Francis Hospital in Tyler, TX.  My doctor came in to visit me, checked me to see how far along I was, and began me on an IV of Pitocin after breaking my water.  Everything got underway at about 8:00 or 8:30 that morning.  I didn't really begin to feel much pain until 11 or 11:30, but even that was bearable.  I had always had horrendous menstrual cramps so labor isn't all that different to me.  Around 12 or 12:30, my nurse convinced me to let her give me 1/2 a dose of demerol in my IV to "take the edge off".  Instead of taking the edge off, it just made me fall into a DEEP sleep in between contractions having this crazy dreams.  (Can you say "high"?)  When it finally wore off, I was done with that.  No more loopy laboring mommy, thank you very much.  I'd rather hold my own & work through the contractions.  At 4:00, I was finally dilated to 10 & it was time to push.  My doctor got the bed broken down, gown on, gloved up & got all the lights aimed and at about 4:30 I began to push.  It took a little while for me to get into the groove of pushing, but once I got started, I kept pushing....and pushing....and pushing...  Two hours later, I was still pushing.  I was exhausted & frustrated because the baby wasn't coming down.  The doctor determined that she was stuck behind my pubic bone and needed a little help out.  After trying forceps (they didn't work because it made me contract SOOOO bad when she inserted them & she couldn't get a good "grip" on the baby), she pulled out the vacuum extractor.  She helped moved her down with it & a while later, I pushed a few more times & she was out.  Finally!  I know most moms tell of the elated feeling of seeing their baby for the first time, but I was just WORN OUT.  I remember laying my head back on the pillow, sighing with relief & saying "Thank goodness that is over!".  The doctor had to spend quite a while stitching me up.  I had a horrible tear & hemorraged a little.  While the doctor got me stitched up & taken care of, the nurses & Larry watched over Savannah as they cleaned her up & got her ready to see me for the first time.

At 6:43pm on Tuesday August 6, 1996, my 7lb 6oz baby girl, Savannah Delaney was born.  She was less than an hour old in this picture.

Savannah's early years were rough.  She was an extremely difficult baby.  Despite her incredibly frustrating first few years, I always knew she was a beautiful baby and that she was so very smart!  She began saying a few words by 6 months & was forming short sentences by 12 months.  At 18 months, she was able to carry on conversations with strangers in the grocery store.  Her memory astounded me early on...repeating entire books that we had read to her only once or twice.  She has always amazed me in so many ways, teaching me along the way.  And now, all these years later, I am so proud to look at her & tell people she is my daughter.

We are complimented all the time on Savannah's behavior & standards.  Believe me...that's not me.  It's all God!  Look at this pretty smile!

Savannah loves to read (photo repeat from last post).

She loves animals.

She loves anything remotely related to Neopets (www.neopets.com).

She loves to write stories (but I don't have a picture of her writing, other than the one I posted yesterday & I don't want to repeat 2 pictures!).

She loves to swim in the summer time.

And tomorrow, she's going to love spending her birthday at Six Flags with her daddy!!!  They're going to go ride all the big rides (I can't do it....without losing my lunch).  I can't wait to hear about their day together!!!

Happy birthday baby girl!  I love you!!!!!!!!!

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