Introducing......Rylee May Galloway

Hooray!!! Our baby girl is FINALLY here and I honestly do not think we could be any happier! She has been amazing and it's hard to imagine what our life was like without her in it (and it's only been a week). She did give me quite the time trying to make her big entrance into the world, but now that she is here none of it even matters any more.

We decided to schedule myself to be induced at 9am Friday the 16th. I knew it could be a lengthy process but at least things would get going...so I thought. So on Friday morning my cell phone rings, it's the hospital saying that I need to just stay home; they were backed up and there was an "excessive line" of women ahead of me. Excessive?! What the heck does that mean???? So we waited, and waited, and waited and Friday seemed to pass us by and we never heard from the hospital. So, Saturday morning we got a phone call at 7am that there was a bed available so we got up and headed in. I got checked into my room at about 9:30am and the nurse came in to check my progress. NOTHING. I was only dilated 1cm and about 50% effaced. I was then put on cytotec to get things moving and this was given to me every 4 hours. Around 10pm when I was only dilated to a 2 they administered another medication called prepidil, which I got two doces of. That got me to about a 3 and 70% and didn't really do much after that...lame! However, that was enough to move on to the next thing and they started the pitocin which seemed to work (good since that is what it's used for). I went from 3 to 5 pretty fast but still not as fast as we were all hoping. It was a looooong, uncomfortable day that's for sure. At one point Ryan and my dad went home to get changed, take a shower and hang out a little before the "big event"! While they were gone I went from a 5 to a 9 really fast, like, in less than an hour. During this time babies heart rate dropped quite a bit to they got me on oxygen and we called Ryan and my dad back to the hospital. The last centimeter seemed to take it's sweet little time but around 9pm I was finally ready to start pushing!!!

** Wait, did I mention the epidural?!? Oh man...I thought I could do without it, but apparently I am not as tough as I thought I was. However I did make it a little over 24-hours. All you women who go without are seriously SUPER HERO'S!!!!!!!!! I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I mean come on a 6" needle going into your back doesn't sound too pleasant. But I will say this, once I got it, I was in heaven and was able to finally relax and get some sleep after being quite uncomfortable for a while. So my vote is YES, get the epidural if you are trying to decide which way to go!!!!

Back to the story of Rylee's arrival...I started pushing, no biggie, we all thought she would be here by 11pm. 11 rolls around and no baby. So we keep pushing...they told us that she looked like she would be here by midnight. Midnight comes, still no baby. By this point my epidural is starting to wear off and after a couple more contractions I decided I needed more drugs! They came in, hooked me up with some more drugs and we continued to push, and...nothin. At this point I was done, I was so tired and I just wanted it to be over already! Apparently I have a narroe pubic arch and she couldn't make the turn to come out. The doctor finally says we had 2 options, we can get the vacuum out and see if that will work or go straight to having a c-section. We chose to try the vacuum for obvious reasons. Why would I want to go into major surgery without at least trying everything we could. The vacuum was HORRIBLE!!!!! It hurt soooooo bad I thought I was going to explode! Doctor used it through three contractions and decided that Rylee was just not coming out. So we got prepped for surgery.



We went in, got all hooked up and it seemed like within 10 minutes our little miss was finally here. September 19, 2011 at 12:40am Rylee May Galloway changed our lives forever, and we could not be happier. She weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and measured in at 20 inches. We were thinking she was going to be a lot bigger than that, especially after the fight she put up. She has beautiful blue eyes and a full head of dark hair (total shocker)


I know she's only a week old but it's hard to remember what our lives were like without her here.



(These pictures were taken at about 3am, we were completely exhausted).




Thank you all so much for all the love and support, it means the world to us. She is a blessing and we look forward to all the joy she is about to bring us! More to come later, I miss my baby and have to go see her :)