The delivery story.

All I said was I wanted her to be born in October so she could have an opal for a birthstone. Well, I should have been more specific. My water broke at three in the morning on October 2nd. I didn't know it broke until I woke up and even then I wasn't sure - it was way too early. I thought "it HAS to be something else". So, I woke up and made breakfast for Ant and AJ and fed the dogs. I did the dishes and got AJ ready for school. Once AJ and I got into the car to get him to school and I started to feel kind of icky. Just an all over kind of not feeling well. It is a 20 minute round trip to drop AJ off at school and by the time I got back home I was having contractions every 6 minutes. Then I started to think I might possibly be in labor and I should probably go to the hospital. So I took a quick shower and called the Dr. "Get here NOW" my nurse told me. I called Anthony who was working up the road and told him the Dr. wants me to go the hospital ASAP and I was in too much pain to drive. Anthony was home within 10 minutes and by the time he got here I was in so much pain I could not stand up straight. Luckily, I am way too organized and already had a hospital bag packed, one for me and one for the baby. So, we were off. It is about a 45 minute ride to the hospital ~ however it took at least ten hours in my opinion! We finally got there and Anthony dropped me off so I didn't have to walk too far. A very nice lady went and got me a wheelchair and wheeled me back to labor and delivery triage. At this point I knew I had lost too much fluid for her to still be OK. Plus, my stomach was as hard as a rock ~ something was definitely wrong... and where was my husband? It turns out, he had such a difficult time finding a parking spot, and drove around so long, he had to leave and get gas then come back to the hospital! Poor thing! How stressful that must have been for him.
Anyway, in triage they tested the fluid and it was in fact amniotic fluid. My contractions were 3 minutes apart.They called my Dr and it turns out he was already in OR room 1. There was no time to wait so they set up OR 2 for me. In 24 minutes we went from triage to the OR. While they were prepping me for surgery they said the were afraid the placenta was pulling away rom the uterus and there was not enough time for an epidural - I was going to have to go under general anesthesia. Because of that Anthony was not going to be able to come in the OR with me. So, we were both going to miss the birth of our daughter. :( The other bad news was ~ there were no beds available in the NICU so if Bella came out and had any issues, they were going to have to fly her to St. Petersburg. I went into surgery knowing when I woke up I would not be able to see my baby for at least three days. After I realized that ~ I started to panic. I went under completely freaked out. During delivery they discovered that the placenta had in fact pulled away from the uterus and we were both at serious risk.
By the time I came out of the recovery room - they had made room for Isabella in the NICU! She was on a different floor, but she was in the same hospital! I was so relieved!
She was relatively healthy considering she was born at 34 weeks and 5 days. At that point we didn't know what we were up against for her health wise, but she was here and she was alive and she is BEAUTIFUL!

Sweet Isabella Marie Cali
Born 10~2~08 at 11:21 am
4 pounds and 14 ounces
18 inches long

A miracle.
An absolute miracle.