Wisdom Heart

Before I get to more recent events in Sophia's story, I thought I would spend the next few posts giving an abridged history starting about a year ago.
My wife Patty and I have been married for 10 years and had waited until the last few years to try to have a child. Once we made that decision, it was 18-24 months before Sophia was conceived.
Patty had a pretty rough pregnancy. She had severe morning sickness early in the pregnancy which caused her to lose a great deal of weight. She was later diagnosed with borderline gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and a condition called polyhydramnios (which is an excess of fluid in the womb). Because of this she spent the last three months of her pregnancy at home on bed rest. And also because of this she had several extensive tests including four level 2 sonograms and biweekly stress tests. In all of these tests there was no indication of any problems with the baby. Even the sonograms which included an echocardiogram of the baby's heart showed no structural heart defects.
All this aside, as you might imagine we were filled with anticipation of the possibilities this new life would bring. We did loads of research and read many books about development, feeding, diapers, etc. All with the expectation that we would have a healthy baby. We had all kinds of aspirations of how everything would be once she got here. And put everything in place to make everything perfect.
We chose a room to be the baby's nursery, and I spent several months painting murals on the walls and ceilings. I painted blue sky with fluffy clouds on the walls and night sky complete with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. We bought furniture and books and prepared to meet her every wish and do our best to fulfill her dreams.
We researched breastfeeding and cloth diapering, and we purchased cloth diapers and a breast pump for when my wife would return to work. We took some classes the hospital provided and knew we had prepared for everything as well as we possibly could.
When Patty's pregnancy had reached term and Sophia was still not here. We decided because of the complications to the pregnancy to schedule labor inducement one week after the due date. We had discussed it and my wife intended to have a completely natural delivery. We checked in the hospital on 10/26 at around 9pm and the process of inducement was begun.
After a night of what we now know were mild contractions, my wife's doctor manually broke her water at 7am. It wasn't much after that active labor started and with it came the real contractions. At this point, all bets were off and my wife immediately decided to have an epidural block. Thanks to an experienced labor/delivery nurse, who new that three emergency cesarean sections had just been decided, anesthesia was rounded up immediately and the incredibly tense administration of the epidural began. If the nurse had not been so on top of things it would likely have been over an hour before anesthesia would have been available. After anesthesia did its thing and I recovered from nearly passing out from the tension, Patty got some much needed rest. I don't think I slept much at all the whole time we were at the hospital.
At around 3pm my wife was fully dilated and the delivery was getting started. My wife and I kept asking about the doctor and the nurse explained that they don't get there until the baby is ready to deliver (last few minutes). I think it was about 4pm when my wife started pushing. It was the most amazing display of will and strength I had ever seen. When the doctor came in she began suiting up with layer upon layer of protective garments, masks and shields. She had remembered the incredible amount of fluid my wife was carrying. And once Sophia's head was born the delivery room was flooded beyond anything I think anyone expected. Shortly after that her shoulders were slightly rotated and out she came. Apparently there was some concern that the fluid had some stool in it, and because of this Sophia was whisked away to have her airway cleared in order to make sure none was aspirated (which would cause a respiratory infection). But soon Sophia was crying and was evaluated as perfectly healthy. The doctor stitched up my wife and within a couple of hours we were moved from the delivery ward into our room.

To be continued...
-Michael