I was given this lovely mothers day gift from *IrishShamrock12


Hey Everyone,

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Gabriel Povl
April 29th, 2008
11:18PM
6 pounds 6 ounces
19 inches
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I'm SOOO sorry I didn't get to update this sooner. As my friend Erich posted for me I was hospitalized on April 28th with pre-eclampsia. Things went downhill very fast as soon as I was admitted so it was a very very good thing I was there. I was only at 36 weeks- a whole month early, but I was developing full blown HELP syndrome. The doctors watched me for 24 hours and on the 29th they told me that they would need to induce me the next day to make sure that the baby would survive. Ironically less then 15 minutes after they had made the decision to induce me I went into labor. I was hooked up to a monitor that showed the baby's heart-rate and after 4 contractions it was obvious that he wouldn't survive the labor, so they did an immediate emergency C-section.

I've never been so scared in my whole life, but I had the best OB that money could buy and my husband was there holding my hand and my parents were out in the waiting room. The surgery started at 11pm, and at 11:18 pm Gabriel was born! I was terrified that he would come out so premature that he wouldn't be able to breathe, but the doctor pulled him out and I heard him scream and that was the best moment of my entire life. My doctor lifted him up over the curtain so I could see him and said Peek-a-boo Mommy!'. Then they rushed him and my husband off the the NICU and stiched me up.

I was in the hospital for 8 days, and was pretty out of it for most of that time. I was up and walking (slowly) about 12 hours after the surgery but because they had to come in and run tests on me every hour I was very sleep deprived. Gabriel was hooked up to IV's and under warming lights and on a breathing monitor until the 6th day when everything drastically improved and he was able to come into the room with me and daddy. Despite being a month pre-mature he was a healthy 6 pounds and six ounces. He has a full head of dark blonde hair (like his daddy) and his eyes are currently dark blue (which may change, but daddy's are light blue). We got tons of pictures and as soon as I have the energy I'll post some.

I want to say special thank-you's to *Prez-Liz, ~DecemberInstinct, ~Vesidian, and ~EMan32x for the wonderful baby gifts. Things have been very tight and your thoughtful gifts mean all the world to my new little family! Also thank you very much to everyone who left me well-wishes. I'm still reading through them!

I also want to say thank you to ^Bloodredsangre who featured my piece 'Equine Dreams' as a DD while I was away. It was a great surprise to come home to that!

I still have some prizes that I need to get out to people and I have over 2000 messages and 1000 deviations to check out. I ask that you be patient with me while I catch up.

Lastly, it's GOOOOOOOD to be back! I missed you guys!

Wren