Zach Dotsey

I’m a dad now!  I have a daughter.  I tried that word on tonight while I was talking to her and it was mind-blowing.  She has great skin and very dark, curly hair.  It’s hard to tell what color her eyes are, and baby eyes change color anyway, but I think they’re a dark, dark blue right now.

I’m going to keep this brief because I’m about to crash, but here’s what’s up.  Mom and baby are both doing great.  Milly was delivered via Caeasarean section at 01:10 today, June 14 after 26 hours of labor.  She was 20.5 inches long and weighed seven pounds, seven ounces.  It turns out to have been a very good thing that we did a c-section because not only was she facing up, but the umbilical cord was around her neck three times.  It wasn’t distressing her at this point, but it probably would have it we had tried to deliver vaginally.

Like I said, I’m beat, so I won’t go into all the emotions and how cool it all was right now, but I will say that Amanda did great, both all day yesterday and this early morning.

After Milly was cleaned up and all we went to another room where she got to meet two of her great-grandparents, one set of grandparents and one of her uncles.  They didn’t stay too long as I think it was well after 2:00 at that point.  When they left we tried breastfeeding Milly, and man did she take to it like a champ!  She’d been making suck motions and was even sucking on a blanket, but I was really proud of how fast she took to feeding.

Zach Dotsey

Although it’s not like we were hoping or had planned, Milly is finally on the way.  After making no real progress at all for many many hours on the dilation front and after consulting with Dr. Joseph, who knows it was a last resort for us, we’re having a Caesarean section to deliver Milly.  He didn’t push us into it but feels it’s the best.  We could wait longer, but there’s been no real dilation since he first looked at Amanda.

We prayed and are at peace with the decision.  If anything, I’m happy to know that I’ll be able to hold my baby in about an hour or so.

Well congrats, Kelia- it seems you were right that our baby was waiting to be born on your birthday!

Zach Dotsey

When I went to the waiting area to get Amanda’s family, Nick and Amy Warkentien showed up along with Eli, who was coming to try to get a peek at yet another potential future girlfriend.  I took Amanda’s parents and brother back first, then grandparents, then the Warkentien clan.

Amanda was completely different on the epidural and hardly looked stressed at all.  She gave it a good effort without, and if the had kept progressing like she should have I think she’d have done a fine job of going natural.

After everybody visited, Amanda and I crashed.  I slept for a while, maybe an hour or two, and I feel like I could sleep for another day.

As things stand, the doctor said we’ll have a baby one way or another by the time his shift ends in the morning.  Amanda was given some pitocin and the contractions are larger and more consistent, which is good.  They’re going to move her, turn her over to a different position, at 9:00 and see how things are then.  The nurse, a different Jane, says she is hopeful that we’ll have a baby by midnight.  If there’s not a lot of change by 9:30 then we’ll talk about options.  We’re trying to avoid having a Caesarean.

I called my dad so he could update my family.  He said they’re coming back from Kentucky tomorrow or Monday, depending on Milly.  Given what I told him, I expect that’ll be tomorrow.  I then called Barry Frazelle to let him know what was going on.  His daughter, Hannah, has been one of the most excited people about this birth, but she’s going to California with the UNCW surf team tomorrow morning.  We wanted to let them know that they can come by no matter what the time is once Milly’s ready for visiting.  We don’t want to make Hannah wait an extra week.

Nick, Earl and Michael went to the house and brought back a few things for us, as well as returning our dogs, Bruce and Harvey, from Nick and Amy’s back to our own house.  Everyone is still here but Phil, who headed back to Richlands because he’s got to teach a Sunday school class tomorrow.  Peggy plans on staying until the baby is here, but Earl figures at some point they’ll leave and come back.  Amy went to a baby shower and Nick currently has no ride.  Really cool of him to stick around.  There’s a lot up in the air right now.

I’m going to take another nap to the sound of my daughter’s heartbeat.

Zach Dotsey

After about three hours of little to no progress, sitting at about seven centimeters, the nurse suggested that Amanda go ahead and get an epidural to help her relax (as she’s exhausted) and possibly, if that doesn’t move things along, some pitocin, which is supposed to help things along.

Amanda just got the epidural and said that if she’ll probably be up for taking visits from the family that has been in the waiting room or hours now.

I was just talking to the nurse, Jane, and realized that I’ve had about half an hour of sleep in about 34 hours.  Hope I’ve got something left when Milly does arrive.  I expect that will give me a second wind.

Zach Dotsey

Still not here.  Lots of contractions and breathing.  Amanda’s tougher than I realized.

Her brother, Michael, was here but his phone is messed up so he went to take care of that with Phil.  Peggy and Earl Lemons, soon-to-be great-grandparents, are waiting with Karen.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda was in the bath when she started feeling pressure in the right places.  The nurse, Jane, who is awesome, came and checked and said that Amanda’s at about seven centimeters and that Milly is really low.  The room is prepped and Amanda is breathing right.

Zach Dotsey

Nothing too new except that I discovered a way to get to all the websites I wanted to get to that the hospital network was blocking.  So now I don’t have to use my half dead iPhone on a finnicky network to get on here.  Yay!

Amanda’s doing well.  She’s between six and seven centimeters and is sleeping a lot.  She’s having to go to the bathroom a lot, mostly false alarms from the pressure.  She’s managing her pain very well- better than I thought she would.

She’s in the bath now.  Once she gets out I’m going to go get a burger that Karen picked up for me.

Zach Dotsey