Eliza Kristine Hodgkinson

Kristy started having contractions early Wednesday morning, but stopped by 8:00. They started again that night and Kristy woke up around midnight and by 3:00 they were close enough to start timing. We thought we were going to head to the hospital around 6:00 but they unfortunately they started to slow down. By 9:00 we started to get worried that it was just another false alarm and they were going to stop. As a last ditch effort, we decided to go for a walk to see if that would help bring the contraction on, and boy did it work. Before we got to the end of our block she had already had two more, and they were never more than four minutes apart after that.

We finally left for the hospital around 10:00 and were admitted by 10:30. After hooking up the contraction monitor and baby heart monitor, it was time for Kristy’s IV. For those who don’t know, needles have been by far the worst part of pregnancy for Kristy. Lucky for her, they were going to draw blood from the same poke as the IV so she should only need to be poked once for the IV and once for the epidural. Well, 3 IVs, 2 epidurals and a blood test later, Kristy was finally all hooked up and ready to go.

By 4:30 Kristy was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. Unfortunately the baby was faced to the side and not down. When the doctor came in to turn the baby, it released meconium which made the doctor a little nervous and he decided it was time to take the baby. Unfortunately, when a baby comes on a doctor’s time table and not Mother Nature’s usually it is the mother who pays for it.

At 5:34 baby Eliza was born at 7 lbs 6 oz, 19 ¾ inches long. Because of the meconium, they took the baby and suctioned out her lungs and after a 10 minute stay with mom she was off to the nursery for some oxygen and monitoring. The baby was finally released from the nursery around 3:30 am and has been breathing just fine ever since.

After two nights in the hospital being taken care of by wonderful doctors and nurses, and some of the nicest visits ever, both baby and mom were released doing well on Saturday morning. Just in time for baby Eliza to make it home in time for her first Ohio State football game.