Phoebe Jane Ruddle Pownell

Hello sweetheart and welcome to our family.

You were born on October 3, 2009 at 5:47 pm and weighed 5 pounds 1 ounce and measured 18 inches long. You are small but mighty.

Now the story. As many of you know I was scheduled to be induced on October 15th. At our doctors appointment on Thursday, I had a NST and a growth scan and both were fine however, my blood pressure was a little high and had been on the high side for me for the previous two appointments. Dr. McMillan said that if I was not feeling good to go have my blood pressure checked and call in to the office if it was any higher than it was during the appointment.

On Friday I went to work and felt okay early in the day, but by lunch time I felt really light headed and then got a bad headache. I decided to go home at lunch and went to get my blood pressure checked when I got into town. It was higher than the day before so I called it in to the doctor's office. He called back and wanted me to go on to the hospital to be monitored. Friday night was spent in the hospital doing a urine test, checking my blood pressure, and monitoring the baby.

At about 9:00 Saturday morning, Dr. Merski stopped in to talk to me about what the tests were showing. Basically it looked as though I may be pre-eclamptic based on the sustained high blood pressure numbers and he thought it was best not to wait two more weeks but to go ahead and start inducing the baby that day (I was 37 weeks and 3 days). So, I started on the medicine that morning and prepared to wait it out since last time it took almost 20 hours from the time I was induced until I had Vivian. Rick went home for a few hours after they started the induction to get some things organized there. So for most of Saturday morning and early afternoon I was just hanging out.

Around 4:00 pm, I was hooked up to the baby monitors and I felt like something was a little weird - I did not think my water had broke, but something was definitely wrong. I rang for the nurse and she checked me out. Turns out I was bleeding pretty bad and immediately the whole room began to fill up with L&D nurses and then Dr. Merski came in and told me that we had to do an emergency c-section because I had a placental abruption as a result of the high blood pressure and the baby had to come out soon. At this point, Rick still was not back yet and I could not get him to answer his cell phone. My nurse Julie was really great at keeping me calmed down and promised to sit with me if he did not make it in time. Finally, as they were ready to wheel me out of the room, I called him one last time and he was at the hospital in the parking lot and he made it to the OR in time to go in with me.

C-sections are a strange experience. I was pretty freaked out anyway by the whole ordeal and the fact that this was a rush job made it worse. Everyone was in a hurry, of course everyone but the nurses had been called in from their day off for the surgery so it was strange. After they got me numbed up and started the c-section, I just kept praying and waiting to hear the baby cry and after what seemed like forever, the doctor announced that he did not know if it was a boy or a girl, but it did have a whole lot of hair. Finally, I heard a little cry and then they told us we had a baby girl. It was very cool and I started to cry because I was just so relieved that she was here and safe. They moved pretty quick with her so I only got to see her for a minute as they were taking her out to the nursery. Then the good drugs started and I do not remember much else about the rest of the c-section.

The night was pretty long for all of us. I went to recovery and Phoebe went to the nursery to be hooked up on about everything they had. She had a couple of issues. First she had swallowed a whole lot of amniotic fluid and the pediatrician was really afraid that her lungs were also full of it and bad as a result of her gestational age. She also had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck twice which is why there was such a delay in getting her delivered (I am very thankful that we were not able to make the induction work because I would have probably ended up with a c-section anyway and labor would not have been good on her at all). I was a mess too because I had a really bad allergic reaction to the medicine in the spinal block and my skin itched all night long and I was just miserable. And then I was really angry because I could not see Phoebe at all that night particularly since they told me that they would try to get me up at 3:00 am to go see her.

By the next morning I had enough of the waiting and demanded to see my daughter. Linda - a really great L&D nurse made it happen and got me up and going well enough to go take a wheelchair ride across the hall and into the nursery to see Phoebe. It was the best feeling in the world to finally see her and to see that she was okay. During the night she had been removed from the oxygen tent, her lungs were clear, and her stomach had emptied most of what she had swallowed on the way out. By Sunday afternoon she was able to come into my room with me for visits and I got to feed her for the first time.

We got to come home on Tuesday and the house was all decked out in Phoebe's honor - thanks Grandma.

Phoebe got to meet her big sister Vivian. So far, so good.

I am feeling a little run down, but not terrible. Phoebe seems to have stopped losing weight, but she still is not where the pediatricians want her to be so we go back to the doctor with her on Monday.

All things considered, we had a great outcome to what could have been a really bad deal. Dr. Merski, Dr. McMillan, Dr. Simmons, and all the L&D Nurses at AMC are the best.

I am so thankful and so blessed to have Phoebe in my life. I love you little girl.