And the Journey Begins.....

On Wednesday May 11 2011 the day started out like any other, woke up got ready for the day and decided to do whatever we could to jump start the arrival of Inoke.  He was only 2 days late, but we thought hey what would it hurt to help him along a little bit.  I had been having contractions for the last 2 days, they were starting to get closer together on Wednesday they werel about 8 mins apart all day long.  We went walking around the mall, grocery store, and some other places.  We took a drive on an extremely obnoxious bumpy unpaved road around the airport.  Did a little you know what, wink wink ;) and for dinner we had some homemade spicy Curry chicken made by Sione.  In the evening we were enjoying a nice visit from our friends Matt and Julie Gillrie.  Julie had brought a cute lil hat, some great books and awesome Star Wars finger puppets for Inoke.  I was showing Matt and Julie the baby's room when I felt a trickle of fluid down my leg, now I thought perhaps it was pee because you know at this stage in pregnancy it happens. I went to the bathroom to check and couldn't really tell if it was pee or if my water had broke.  So I came out and continued my conversation with the Gillrie's.  Well that didn't last long, I felt another rush of fluid down my leg, I stopped mid sentence and said, "uh I think my water just broke" and with that the Gillrie's wished me luck gave me hugs and Sione, myself, my mom, and my dad prepared to go to the hospital!!!!

My dad was kind enough to capture some of the last moments of my pregnancy.

By about 830pm I was all checked in, changed into my gown and hooked up to the monitors.  On the initial check by the nurse I was dilated to 3+, contractions 5-6 mins apart, but she could still feel the sac intact which meant my water had not truly broken but had a tear in it somewhere causing a leak and Inoke, even though he was head down, was still way up and not "dropping" or "engaging", so the decision was made to start me on pitocin to intensify the contractions to encourage Inoke to drop.  Meanwhile much to my horror 2 nurses, 1 resident physician, and my physician Dr Savage decided they ALL needed to participate in checking my progress on several occasions throughout the evening.  I asked Sione if he was getting jealous of all the "action" I was getting ... gross ... 

I decided to get an epidural at about 1130 pm because of all the checks I was getting pretty uncomfortable and also with the pitocin not only were my contractions really intense, I didn't feel like there was a break in between them and that was pretty uncomfortable too. 

Throughout the evening they were monitoring my blood pressure which was totally unstable, it would go really high then dip really low during a contraction, and Inoke's heart rate would dip way down to about 50 beats per minute during a contraction then go way up to 150-160 beats per minute, poor little guy was not a fan of the pitocin.  By 0200am I was only dilated to a 4 and not progressing, my blood pressure would not stabilize and Inoke's heart rate was also very erratic. By 0215 Dr Savage made to decision to do an emergency C-section because Inoke and myself were in distress and he was not dropping down at all to try a vaginal birth.  

More anesthesia was given and by 0230 or so per my mom, I was wheeled out and headed to the OR, and badda bing badda boom, at 0252 on May 12th Inoke was born!!! I just cant believe how fast it all happened and how smooth it went.  Believe me it was way scary at the same time because of how fast they were working and talking, pretty overwhelming.  

When I heard his loud screech of a cry, which sounded like an owl or some sort of prehistoric dinosaur, tears just started rolling down my face and the wonderful anesthesiologist was kind enough to wipe them away for me since my whole body was basically numb and I couldn't lift my own arm to my face.  Sione went with the nurse to watch Inoke be cleaned up while they stitched me up.  Dr Savage told me that every time I had a contraction Inoke would drop down and his little head would push up against my pubic bone, but my birth canal was too small to let him drop all the way down, so the poor little peanut was born with a little gash on the top of his head from hitting the bone, and she said I would have to have C-Sections from here on out.  So sad ... 

What a crazy ride this was.  I finally got back to my room after recovery at about 0530 and they brought Inoke in to me and Sione.  My mom and dad, proud grandma and grandpa Harris were there to capture the moment! 

We are soooo soooo excited to finally have him here and start this great adventure.