SHE'S HERE!!!

The day has come to welcome Ms. Sydney Jo Larsen. She was born on Tuesday, July 19th at 9:28 am at RiverBend Hospital.  She was 9lbs. .4oz and 21inches long. Our adventure started at home on Monday night. We walked around the neighborhood for almost an hour, had dinner and then Phil and I went back out for another few laps. Let's just say, that walking DOES work! When we came home after the first walk I used the ball which actually stopped my contractions. When we were doing our walks we were timing contractions, we ended up going to the hospital when mine where 2 min. apart.
We made our way to the hospital where they admitted me and immediately got me hooked up to drugs to help. I ended up with 2 epidurals. We started with one that only did half of my body, so they gave me two boosters of drugs that only lasted an hour each. After getting to 8cm and getting stuck and not being able to handle the pain because the boosters were not working, they decided to take out my other epidural and put in a brand new one...which worked wonders!
After I made in to 10cm I finally got to push, I pushed for 13 min. : ) and out she came. Let's just say her head was definitely not the biggest part of her; her tummy was. Though the pushing and delivery went quickly the next few hours were horrendous! After I had Syd I hemorrhaged very badly and lost 6 units of blood. They said that part of the hemorrhaging was from my placenta not breaking away correctly. I had to go to the OR to have a partial D and C. Because of all the blood loss I had a blood transfusion of 2 units and stayed in the hospital for an extra two days.
Now that we are out and home, things have been a little rough. I have no energy and my blood counts are very low that it has been very hard to take care of Syd. Thank goodness for my wonderful husband that has helped with Syd and taking care of me. As well as all the wonderful new grandparents that have stayed at our house to take care of Syd so I can recover. Still to this day, I am hour by hour of how I feel and how much I can do. I still get very light headed and have already gone back to urgent care because of blood levels. Though we have had some major issues over the last week, which has made it a little hard to bond with Syd...she is perfect! She is a great sleeper, eater, and all functions are a go. I could not ask for a better daughter or a better support then our wonderful family and my husband. If not for them, I don't know what I would do.

Thank you to everyone for your love and support and kind thoughts. I will update as much as I can, but please be patient about pictures and visits. Here are some pictures to hopefully hold you over for a little while.