MAKENNA REESE CAMERO

Please join us in welcoming the newest addition to the Camero family:

MAKENNA REESE CAMERO

The little peanut finally made her presence known on March 7, 2007 @ 11:48PM. She weighed in at 8 pounds & 8 ounces, and was 19.5 inches long. Not such a little peanut, huh?

As Enza reached her 40th week, we both were eagerly anticipating Makenna's arrival. We started to increase Enza's walking, and she had been off of work two weeks prior. Although many women go 1-2 weeks past their due dates, our doctor didn't want Enza to go far past hers, mainly because Enza was having an extremely hard time eating much, and started to lose weight during the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy. Our final appointment was the day after Makenna's due date of the 4th, and the doctor tried to stimulate Enza's body to go into labor, since she had been stuck @ 1cm for approximately 3 weeks. Once we found that to be unsuccessful, she recommended that Enza have a prostoglandin gel placed near her cervix to help the dilation process move along. A few hours after the gel, Enz started to have some serious cramping, and the contractions started coming more frequently. We went to the hospital at 4:30am on March 7th, where Enza was admitted, and we waited as the contractions became more frequent.

After a few hours, the doctor checked on Enz and found that her cervix was dilating very slowly. She recommended a drug called pitocin to help induce Enza's labor. Once that was administered, it only took a short amount of time for the contractions to become more intense and more frequent. Another measurement came and Enza was up to 3cm. Not much progress, but enough pain for Enz to request the epidural. Originally she wanted to do this without aid of any drugs, but since the pitocin can make the contractions feel much worse than they are, Enz didn't have much of a choice. We kept our spirits up though, because even through all this, we knew we would have our beautiful baby girl with us soon.



Things went on this way pretty much all morning, with Enza's cervix dilating to 5cm by lunchtime. Increases of pitocin were given throughout the day, as well as the epidural, but her cervix stayed firm at 5cm. Later in the afternoon, she got to 6cm, then 7cm, and by nighttime, she was up to 8cm. Enz was pretty exhausted from all the contractions, drugs, and machines she was hooked up to. It wasn't easy sitting beside her, feeling helpless because I couldn't do a damn thing to help ease her pain.



Later that night, around 10pm, we noticed that Enz started to develop a little fever, but that was attributed to all the stuff going on with Enza's body to help get her along. Shortly afterward, we noticed that Makenna's heartrate began a steady climb, and eventually topped out @ around 215bpm. As we sat and watched the heartrate climb, the staff came in to calm us down. The doctor then came in to discuss Enza having a c-section, because now that she had been stuck at 8cm and developed a fever, we were putting a lot of strain on the baby.

We both felt extremely emotional & helpless because we were doing all we could to keep from having a c-section. We almost felt that we had wasted our time trying to keep this natural, and in doing so, Enza had to lie there in pain for close to 21 hours. But that's life, and of course we all know that sometimes things are out of our control.

By 11:48pm, our daughter Makenna Reese was born, and it was such an exhilirating moment. Hearing her cry was such a wonderful and unforgettable sound. Enza was exhausted, and I was relieved. Our baby girl was finally with us!