Dr. P took over and pretty much decided the baby had to come out soon. Her heartbeat was up pretty high now and wasn't coming down. He chose as his weapon the forceps...much maligned but useful in the hands of a trained master. He said he came from a program that used forceps all the time and he only uses them to guide, not to pull. OK, doc, you're in charge.
Tina only had to push through about 6 contractions before the baby's head came out. I can only say that I was absolutely amazed and still speechless at the whole site. The baby was huge, and the doc was doing all sorts of stuff (no details here) to help. Just plain wow.
As soon as the head and shoulders were out the doc sucked out the meconium and then one more push got the whole body out. At 7:47 AM they plopped her down on Tina's belly and someone said "It's a girl" and I barely had time to hear that before they took her away to the little table on the side and started working on her. Dr. P was still dealing with the aftermath of the birth -- placenta, etc. -- but I didn't know what to pay attention to.
Elizabeth wasn't breathing.
Now, they didn't want her to start right away because they wanted to be sure the meconium was cleaned out. But after that, she didn't breathe like they wanted her to. A bunch of nurses came in and did all sorts of nursy things to her and she finally started, but for what seemed like 15 minutes they were working on her. I couldn't see much -- I was standing with Tina and they didn't want me near Elizabeth. So all I could do was pray and tell Tina things would be fine. God gave us this child and a long and rocky road to get her...if He didn't want us to have her, He wouldn't have put us through what He did. We will never under-appreciate this child. Not ever.
Finally they were satisfied with her and took her to the special care nursery to observe, warm, etc. her, while watched Dr. P patch Tina back up. Um...nasty.
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