The Manning's Online Home

Melia Rose Manning

Well, Melia is here. Before I put up the pictures and tell some of the story Lisa and I would like to thank Michael for updating this page as events were unfolding earlier today. He's very cool. We are also very grateful to Kim Lorenz for being so cool about watching Corryn. She is an excellent friend.

Lisa's Dr. appointment was at 10:30 today. We figured it would be just like the others she has had during the past month:

You look good, you're dilated 2 cm, come back next week.

Lisa had been very sick of hearing this and was starting to get frustrated but we figured that would be the story again this time because she really hadn't been having any serious contractions.

We got to the doctor's office and the nurse told us that they will sometimes just break the water of women who are full term and who have dilated to a 3. We knew the target so we just hoped and wished that the Dr. would do an exam and say she was 3 cm dilated. He came into the room and said just that.

Lisa coyly asked him if that meant she could go next door to the hospital and have them break her membrane to get labor started. Dr. Janet responded by asking her if she was having contractions. She sadly answered no.

Dr. Janet asked again...this time with a conspiratorial tone in his voice..."Are you having contractions?" Lisa answered correctly (YES!!!) when she had a second chance so Dr. Janet said he would call Dr. Alembek, the OB/GYN on call at the hospital and let him know about the elicit arrangement. He told us to be sure not to tell the nurses at the Labor and Delivery area in the hospital about what they were doing.

At 11:25 AM we made our way over to the hospital and were admitted because of Lisa's "intense contractions". We thought we were so clever. When the nurse examined Lisa before we had even seen the doctor the nurse reported that Lisa had already progressed to 4 cm. It was apparent that Lisa would have had Melia today even without our nifty little arrangement with the doctors. There was much rejoicing.

By 3:00 PM the contractions were very painful and Lisa finally got an epidural. It only worked on half her body though so at 3:30 the Anesthesiologist administered a larger dose of the drug. Lisa felt nothing very soon after this was done. We were both very surprised when 40 minutes later the nurse checked her and told her that she was ready to have a baby.

Dr. Alembek was summoned to Lisa's palatial "Labor and Delivery Suite" (View image), he donned his protective clothing and within eight minutes we had another kid. Melia Rose Manning.

We got to spend about two hours with her before she was taken to the nursery. During that time she ate a large meal from the boobies then was passed around. Here are some pictures of her with Mom and Dad.

Finally she was whisked off to the nursery where I got to watch them warm her up, take her blood, give her a shot, put some antibiotic goo in her eyes, give her a bath then warm her up again. It was all very exciting. Melia didn't like it.

She was ready to go back to Mom.

When Melia and I headed back we found that Corryn had finally made it to the hospital with our awesome-cool-wonderful friend Kim. Corryn and Melia were very pleased with each other. Corryn has talked to Melia through their mom's belly for months...she has done it nearly every day and it was amazing that Melia actually seemed to relax when she heard Corryn's voice. Very cool.

It has been a long but fun day and we’re excited for tomorrow when we can all hang out together for the day at the hospital.

I hope to be able to post some more pictures and possibly video tomorrow.

Posted by Jeremy at July 29, 2004 11:18 PM