Welcome Magdalena Teresa Jones

Welcome to our second daughter, Magdalena Teresa Jones, born Sunday, October 11 at 8:25 pm. Magdalena was 9 lbs 2 oz, 20.5 inches long, with a head circumference of 35.5 centimeters. She has dark hair like her sister, and a delicate nose and mouth - plus beautiful peach/pink coloring. Lena has taken to nursing like a duck in water, and has already passed the fear of jaundice phase with her whopping 6 bowel movements in less than 24 hours! Go Lena!
Here is our newest little one!
A few hours after birth:

Early this afternoon:

Family photo (sadly sans Lucia, no visitors allowed especially under 18 years due to fears of swine flu :-(

Dada Gets a Smile:

Lucia enjoying the lovely flowers Grandma and Grandpa Jones sent to welcome Magdalena:

For those interested in the labor - read on. If you don't like these details, thanks for stopping by our blog and we hope you will return for future Jones Team Updates!

My labor was very strange. Readers will recall that I had already been in some form of labor for 15 hours before heading to the hospital. Upon arrival, I was 4 cm dilated (considered "Active phase") and labored for a few more hours, including one in a nice jacuzzi. Getting out of the jacuzzi the intensity really picked up, and I decided that I wanted to get an epidural. With Lucia, my pain was already at a 10 (or 11) out of 10 by the time I got the epi, so this time I got it when pain was around an 8. I had been in labor for 19.5 hours by the time I got the epidural (vs 18 last time).

Things progressed fairly well then, despite my being extremely (too!) numb. I got to 8 cm in a few hours, but the contractions were not strong enough to keep progressing, so I went on pitosin and we reduced the epi strength from 14 to 10 so I could feel my legs and start moving around on the bed. Despite our best efforts (thanks to Molly our midwife, Alex, and Katie the labor nurse) and all my rotating and movement, even when I was dilated to 10 cm and cervix completely thinned, Magdalena (just "baby" at that point, since we didn't know her gender) was not centered with her head at the cervix. She was too high, with a lip at my pelvic bone - basically being held back by my pelvic bone. I tried pushing at that point, but it did not work. I tried breathing through contractions (approaching a 6 level of pain even with the low dose epi), but still no movement. By then it was about 7:30 pm and I had been in the "pushing" phase for 1.5 hours. I got a little bit of a fever for some reason, and Lena's heart rate skyrocketed to over 200 bpms (she had been between 130-150 throughout before that).

Molly brought the cesarean surgeon in, and we all decided that for the health and safety of both baby and me, c-section was the only thing we could do at that point. It was very hard for me, as having a cesarean was my very last resort to getting the baby out at the end. I was crying with the emotion of it, shaking with the labor pains, and praying that all of this was God's will. But I knew, as did Alex, that there was no option now - and keeping our baby (and me!) safe and healthy were the most important outcomes.

30 minutes later, the anesthesiologist was back on the scene, and I was numbed again. The procedure itself was quite short, and the doctors pulled out Lena's head first, then the rest of her and we heard our "It's a Girl" (much to my surprise, as you may have guessed from reading the blog at 38 weeks!). It turns out that she was "transverse" - which means that she was facing forward in the birth canal, but slightly tilted, such that her head was pressed against my pelvic bone and she was stuck. In fact, the right side of her face is pressed back from my pelvic bone, and this scrunched up the left side of her face so that she looks like she has a permanent wink. The nurses assure us that this will all grow smooth, and Alex said it looks better today than yesterday (I was too delirious yesterday to make a comparison).

The downside of the cesarean itself was that I could not hold Lena right away. Alex stayed with her as she was cleaned up and given the Vitamin K and a few shots (as well as a blood draw to see if she had some bacterial infection since I had a fever late in labor - thankfully this came back negative). Alex held her up to my face so I could see her and give her kisses, and about 45 minutes later, she came in to my recovery room and I was able to nurse. Magdalena is a champion nurser, as I mentioned before - much better than Lucia was. She latched right on and sucked away!

A few other thoughts before I sign off. One - Alex and I do want to have more children, and I am sad that I may have to have cesareans now for all the rest (have not researched VBAC enough yet). Two - my body seems to always have complicated and LONG labors, regardless of how great the pregnancy was. This sucks. Overall, Lena's labor was 26.5 hours (Lucia's was 25 hours). Three - I am doubly sad/worried about recovery. I can't hold Lucia for at least 6 weeks, so I will need help on the days that they are both home at the same time. Poor Lu! And I will have to really work on what exercise I can do, as running will definitely be out for 6+ weeks. Hopefully easy walking and maybe swimming will be okay. This is very hard for me as I literally need to be active for my sanity (and those around me!). So I'm sure I'll have lots to say about that in future posts.

Finally, though, I do want to say that despite not wanting to over-analyze the moments of Magdalena's labor too much, our midwife did assure me that there was really nothing more that we could have done to get Lena out vaginally. At the end of the day, she was stuck in a bad position and never lowered through it, despite pushing and moving and all my best efforts. So I am at peace with how we got her out, and just grateful to have a beautiful, healthy, and sweet daughter - as well as a sister for Lucia, something I never had, but always wanted. God Bless our family.