New to the World

Summer's arrival was both expected and a surprise. Scarlet was doing just fine right up to her Friday, August 7th doctor appointment. Her blood pressure seemed rather high through three tests, so the doctor sent her right over to the hospital to be tested for preeclampsia.Yes, indeed this was the case.

The first attempt to induce labour was with Cervadil. "Cervidil inserts are used for: Inducing labor in pregnant women at or near term. Cervidil inserts are a prostaglandin. It works by causing softening and dilation of the cervix." This failed to achieve anything except lots of hard contractions that distressed the baby.

The second attempt to induce labour was with oxytocin injection. This also triggers contractions, but those only stressed the baby too without actually letting her out.

So Cesarean (C-Section) it was to be.

Summer was born at 9:23pm on Friday, August 7th at the Royal Victoria GLEN Hospital in Montreal.

Recovery was HARD... still is... for Scarlet. Recovery is 4-8 weeks long.

Here are some of our first decisions:

1. Prenatal Testing (tested for Down's Syndrome and other syndromes)
2. Infant Screen Testing (Cystic Fibrosis, Protein Allergies, Immunodeficiency Diseases, etc)
3. Formula Feeding
4. NOT co-sleeping

Our reasons in brief:

Prenatal Testing was VERY important. Scarlet was 42 and was at a higher risk of having a child with serious problems. If we birthed a child with any serious conditions, what would happen to this child (child-like adult) when we died? Who would care for her? We have already seen the social system failing at this kind of care and did not want to leave a helpless child to that, not to mention that we did not think it fair to bring such a child into the world that we may not have the time and energy to devote to that kind of care. In the end, all tests showed that the baby was just fine!

The Infant Screening was important as it tests for a number of genetic diseases. The baby... and Scarlet... did not like this test at all. Scarlet left the room while Mark held Summer for the testing. There is no news on the results. No news is good news. What a relief.

Formula feeding was NOT A CHOICE. We originally wanted to do breastfeeding. However, Scarlet had no milk in production at all, despite an idiotic nurse bruising the crap out of her breasts in an attempt to force out what was not there. So we had to go with formula feeding. We were told that milk production may kick in around day 5 postpartum. It had, but we were doing so well with the formula that we did not want to mess with a good thing. Also, this allowed for Mark to care for summer while Scarlet healed, since she was in so much pain that she often could not hold the baby through a full feeding, if at all.

We chose not to co-sleep with the baby for the baby's safety. Mark moves a great deal in his sleep and sleeps rather hard. He would never notice if he rolled onto the baby and suffocated her. Scarlet is so used to shoving a cat off the bed to the floor that she was afraid she might do so with the baby. So for the baby's sake, she sleeps in a cradle.

We have been home with her for a week. All is going well as we heal, adjust, and love this tiny little 4 lb 14 oz baby girl.