Williams&Co: Alyssa

I'm a mommy!! Wow, that feels so weird to say. Alyssa Payton Williams is here. She was born May 18 at 12:32 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 1 oz, was 20 3/4 inches long, has a head full of hair, and blue eyes.

While I'm completely thrilled that she's finally here, the process to get her here was definitely NOT a fun one! I finally let the doctors talk me into an epidural, and they messed it up! They went too far and put it into the actual spinal column instead of the epidural space. So within seconds of getting it, I went completely paralyzed from my rib cage down. I almost fell off the side of the bed because I had no trunk muscles. Probably would have fallen if Keith hadn't been standing right there. I panicked thinking they had totally screwed up and the paralysis would be permanent. The anesthesiologist didn't do a good job of explaining what had happened and easing my fears either. Finally a nurse came back in and explained it was nothing to worry about, they did this on purpose for c-sections. So it's nothing serious, they just didn't mean to do it on me. That made me feel better, but it was still so strange to watch the nurses move my legs and position me in bed knowing those were my legs but having no sensation or control whatsoever.

When Alyssa was finally born she had tied her umbilical cord in a knot and swallowed too much fluid. They wouldn't even let Keith cut the cord because she had turned "so blue she was almost black" (is how my Mama described her). They cleaned her up, showed her to me for about 5 seconds, then rushed her to NICU to be suctioned and placed on oxygen. I didn't see her again until about 4 hours later.

Then they couldn't stop me from bleeding. The doctor worked for over an hour to stop the bleeding. I lost over 6 pints of blood and had to get a blood transfusion. They're still not 100% sure what went wrong, but the doctor thinks there may have been a 2nd partial placenta. Which means I may have started out with twins and one just didn't develop, but the placenta didn't dissolve either. He is going to go back and look at the ultrasound to see if he can see the 2nd placenta to figure out if this really is what happened. They wound up having to do a D&C to stop the bleeding. The doctor later said if that hadn't worked, his only other option would have been an emergency hysterectomy. Praise the Lord that didn't happen!!

The good news? I have the most ADORABLE baby girl in the world!! (Sorry to all you other moms out there, I'm sure I'm just a bit biased!)

Alyssa is finally here!