My funny Valentine, Sweet comic Valentine, You make me smile with my heart

They're tiny and chubby and so sweet to touch,
and soon they'll grow up and resent you so much.
Now they're yelling at you and you don't know why,
and you cry and you cry and you cry. - "Friends: The One with the Birth"

 

Violet Atsuko Fourre

On February 11, 2011, Baby Girl came screaming into the world at 4:49 pm after an incredibly long and complicated day. Without going too TMI, here's the story of how she joined the world.

Since her due date was Feb 6, on our Feb 7th appointment, we made arrangements to have her induced. The date of 2/11/11 appealed to both Scott and I, for our separate reasons: his because it's a date that's easy to remember, and mine because I felt it almost poetic that it marked exactly a year since I lost my job in TN that helped kick start my time in Idaho. So, we made set up the appointment and the nurse said, 'great, it's set up. Come in 1600 on Thursday' - which confused the both of us, but we didn't feel the need for an explanation and just said 'no problem.'

Thursday rolled around, I repacked the hospital bag, double checked the checklist and Scott came home early from work. We got all of the stuff together in my car, I fired up my iPod for some tunes and we both laughed at "Like A Surgeon" by Weird Al popping on. We should have taken this to be an omen for the next day.

Apparently, the reason why we were called in on Thursday afternoon was to insert something to get my dilation to further progress. (Again, there are going to be some parts I'll vague out to help avoid TMI.) Once that was done, we were told that we could just go home and relax as much as we can till either my water breaks or my contractions get 3-5 minutes apart. So, home we went. We spent the rest of the evening watching "American President" and "Mission Impossible 3" (my choices) while I sat, paced and tried to breathe through incredible discomfort. At around 1 in the morning, I decided it was time to head in.

Right away they got me hooked up to various machines and it took three tries to get an IV in, but after several hours, I was hooked up to an epidural and feeling nothing below my naval. This was just to get a baseline of how effective that wonderful, marvelous drug would be for me and later got the pitocin and then broke my water at around 1 in the afternoon. After near three hours of active labor, baby still wasn't in any mood to join us. After a discussion about what to do next, we all agreed on a cesarean section and I was rolled into the OR.

After a little over an hour, we heard lots of baby crying, a doctor held her up to show a pair of tiny feet poking above the blue curtain that separated where my head was lying and Scott's seat to the surgery and the doctors called him over to the heat bed to tell him some of her vitals.

Violet was born at 8 pounds 5 ounces, with a full head of curly dark hair, all fingers and toes (and working joints, because, yes, I checked) and cute dimples.

We spent the weekend at the hospital and was discharged Sunday afternoon. I'm having a bit of trouble getting around, but the pain pills they gave me help tremendously. We are still amazed at what all happened and both Scott and I are delirious on happiness and intermittent sleep.

We love all of the attention we've been getting from family and friends, and we swear that once we get any sort of groove going we will be more responsive to phone calls, texts, emails and Facebook. And there will be a wealth of pictures...eventually.