Welcome baby Allie!

After 17 hours of labor and 1 1/2 hours of pushing, Allie Kalilinoelani was born on July 28th, 2010 at 5:28pm, weighing in at a whopping 9lbs and 6oz, and measuring 20 3/4inches long! Our little family is doing well, and we are so happy that we get to hold our healthy baby girl in our arms!

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This is a cute picture of Malia getting ready for her new baby sister, before heading into the hospital to be induced the night before.

Getting ready to be hooked to all sorts of monitors!

Unfortunately we were unable to begin the induction process right away due to contractions that were only 2-3min apart. Since I was already dilated to 4cm, they wanted to see if I would progress on my own (even though this was the exact same 'status' I was the Thursday before.) In wasn't until 12:30am that they were able to place the "cervical ripening agent". My contractions began to worsen, I dilated to 6cm, and my water broke at 5am. By 6am I received my epidural. Unfortunately it still missed numbing some important areas, so they had to keep giving me "booster" shots and an epidural pump. The drugs made me so HAPPY! (until they wore off...) It was really funny how dead my legs had become.

Now it was just a waiting game to see if I would dilate further without pitosin. Baby Allie was still really high up and wasn't dropping. That's when they noticed that I had TWO bags of water. Weird huh? So I think sometime around 10-11ish they broke my second bag of water (I think I had dilated to 7cm or 8cm). It wasn't too long after that the nurse came to check on me, looked at the monitor screen, and turned and pushed an emergency button that filled my room with doctors and nurses. Allie's heart rate had dropped off the charts. We were so scared for our baby when they slapped on the oxygen mask, jabbed me with a needle to stop the contractions, stuck the heart monitor into baby's head (inside of me), and moved me into all sorts of positions to "un-pinch" the umbilical cord. There was even talk of an emergency c-section. Thankfully her heart beat returned to normal... but I was very shaken up.

At 12:30pm I asymmetrically dilated to 9cm and was 100% effaced,. However, since they had to stop the contractions with the shot earlier in order to save Allie's life, progression slowed immensely. I got hooked up to the pit, and finally by 2:45pm I was dilated to 10cm. She was still kind of high, so we had to wait for the contractions to push baby lower. At 3:45pm the nurse had me start pushing, but something happened that made us wait for the doctor. She never really said what. So we started again at 4pm, and 1 1/2 hours later, Allie was born! The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck once, and because there was meconium in my fluid (like with Malia), she was promptly whisked away by the NICU. Thankfully she did not need CPR like Malia, and came back 15min later, healthy and ready to meet her proud parents!

Allie, at least at this moment, seems the exact opposite of Malia. She is fair skinned and has blond hair. Right now her eyes are a turquoise blue. It is hard to say who she looks like since she still looks all squished and swollen. She has already changed so much from these first pictures so stay tuned for updated 'cuter' ones!

I don't look near as exhausted as I do looking back at Malia's pictures. When we get home I will post some comparison shots.

What happy parents, and a very proud daddy!

Malia came to visit later in the evening, and unfortunately this is the only picture we got. (Hopefully I remember to take a family picture before leaving the hospital.) Malia was very shy and wouldn't touch, hug, hold, or kiss baby. It wasn't that she completely ignored her because she wouldn't stop talking about baby Allie and all that we would do with baby Allie when we came home, and loved pointing out all of 'baby's stuff'. It sure is going to be an adjustment!

We are so grateful that labor went better than the last, even thought it was still a difficult one. I was in a lot less pain, but I unfortunately still ended up with too many stitches. Recovery may take some time, but we are looking forward to getting home and figuring out how to make our new family of FOUR work! Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers!