Friday, June 10, 2011

Birth Story

In Ryah's baby book, there is a page titled "Birth Story." It gives you about five lines to write about the experience leading up to baby's big debut. I figure I might have to type her story just to get it to fit into the allotted space.  While Ryah is now only 2.5 weeks old, it seems like she has already had enough "adventures" to fill several pages.

It seems only fitting that the way we found out I was pregnant with Ryah was by me running a 50k- something felt off, and three days later we learned why. The Flagline 50k will now have a special place in our memory. Despite the challenge of the day, I now just look back at that race and think of Ryah's ultra debut- actually it was her second ultra, since the weekend before "we" had run for 14 hours pacing a friend at Pine to Palm 100. Her little life began in a very fitting manor.
Ryah's ultra debut

We didn't exactly cruise through the rest of the pregnancy. At five months we learned her placenta was low lying. I had to stop running, and we monitored it closely with additional ultrasounds. Through these visits we then learned that she was small for her "age." At 36 weeks, her size dropped below the 10th percentile, and there was talk of immediately delivering her. Luckily, the doctors decided to give her a little more chance to grow. They put me on bedrest, and we spent the next three weeks driving to Bend for additional ultrasounds and fetal monitoring.

At 39 weeks I was induced.
Of course, the next stage couldn't be a sprint- ultra training came into play. Apparently, Ryah had not been informed it was her time to come into the world. After 32 hours of labor, her heart rate started to decelerate, and the doctor opted for a C-section to safely deliver her. It started as a regular procedure- music was playing, the nurses were joking around, and then they checked her heart rate again and it had plummeted. Suddenly everything became rushed and Josh barely made it into the room before they had her out. It took her 2.5 minutes to breathe on her own.

Despite the rocky beginning,  Ryah is doing amazing. She weighed 5 lbs. 15 ounces at birth, surprising the doctors and nurses who were prepared for a much smaller little girl. She passed her two week check up with flying colors and she has already grown an inch since her birth.  Our yellow lab has taken it upon herself to be Ryah's protector, and she follows us around the house whenever we carry the baby.

By the time I am allowed to run, she will hopefully be big enough for the baby jogger. Just like her parents, she loves to be moving.

2 comments:

  1. So precious. Very happy it all worked out perfectly but as a parent it's a rough time waiting to be sure all is good. Bill and I went though many awful trials to have our boy and now at 15 he's as healthy and as happy as we could have ever hoped. BTW: he started out small and now he huge :) Congratulations again, she's beautiful!

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  2. Ryah is so beautiful and bright eyed! Congratulations to you and Josh for your golden triumph. Papa Peter & me (also now a grandma) are looking forward to strolling into the local Sunnyside cafe with our happy bouncing grandchildren in tow as we ask "You wanna healthy cookie sweetie?"

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