Allison is here!

Allison Kelly Crook was born on April 9, 2009 at 8:26 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 21 inches long. She has dark brown hair and it looks like she has brown eyes. She is perfect in every way. We see a little of both Haley and Marcus in her. She is, so far, a very calm baby; sleeps a lot, hardly ever cries (we kind of wish she would cry more because you wouldn't believe how cute her cry is!), and she is nursing well. I will give you a few more details of what went on yesterday to lead to her C-Section because we haven't really had a chance to tell everyone.

Haley checked into the hospital on Wednesday night to get started. She had not started to dilate at all so they wanted to get a jump start during the night so it wouldn't take so long on Thursday. They got the i.v. in & gave her pitossin at a low level (2) for the night. They also put a little contraption in her that the nurse likened to "Chinese water torture to the cervix". Her contractions started immediately, in fact, they actually started on their own as soon as she arrived. The nurse said that she was probably starting labor anyway that night! Things went pretty well but she couldn't sleep through the contractions so they gave her a sleep aid and later some demerol. (Sorry Jeanine if I'm spelling these wrong). She slept for about 5 hours which she said was heaven! She woke up at 5 when they came to remove the water torture and check her. She was dilated to a 2 and she was really happy that there was progress! They started turning up the pitossin every 30 minutes and broke her water at about 9 am. The contractions started getting more & more painful and closer together & more regular which is what should happen. Everything seemed to be going by the book. First time mom's can take a long time getting dilated to a 5. Allison's heart rate was perfect and we waited & waited (and played phase 10 a couple of times). They were getting pretty painful and Haley was beginning to understand what real contractions felt like. She said "these suck!" At around noon they gave her the epidural. She was immediately relieved and thought that this was the greatest invention in the world. (The picture above was taken during the post-epidural time). She was about a 3 to a 3 1/2 when the epidural was given and we expected things to go pretty quickly. The contractions looked stronger, closer together and more regular, but every time the nurse checked her, there was no progress. At about 7 I left them at the hospital to pick up my kids from the bowling alley and take them to dinner. Marcus called and said that the Dr. just came in and said that the baby was starting to show signs of distress and since she was not progressing they would need to do a C-Section within the hour. I had just left them minutes before playing phase 10! I was in shock. But in a way, it was a big relief to know that it would soon be over and Haley wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. It reminded me so much of my experience with her. I know that it is worth whatever pain you have to go through to have a healthy baby. I am so grateful for Doctors who make good decisions and go into action so quickly. The kids and I got to the hospital as soon as we could. It was about 8:20 by the time we got up to the waiting area. I remembered I had left my camera in their labor room so I went down the hall to get it. When I was walking past the C-Section room I heard the cutest little cry of a baby and I knew she had just been born. It was so cool. It made me feel to relieved just to hear her cry. I knew everything was probably OK then. It took about an hour for Marcus to be able to come out and tell us any details. Meanwhile, Scott, Sarah, and Great-Grandma Wright got there. We had to wait about another hour to be able to go into Haley's room and see them all. Marcus sent me a picture while we were waiting, so we sat in the hallway and sent texts to you all and tried to answer some of them back. It was so much fun to finally hold her and see her. She is the sweetest little thing. We love her so much!!


This one is a little blurry, but she looks so cute! This was taken a couple of hours ago.