More Baby Details

Mom, Dr. Dad, me, baby, and D


All dolled up in her coming home clothes


My sisters with me and baby.


First family photo.

Mom, Baby and Chatterbox.


The new arrival.


I know some people don't enjoy the hospital, but I absolutely loved it. I had so much quiet time that I could spend inhaling the newborn scent of my little one; they brought me meals on trays in bed and--bonus!--they actually tasted good; I could wash away all the having a baby muck in someone else's shower (and someone would come and clean it up for me!); and on top of it all, I could read and nap to my heart's content.

For those of you interested in details, I'll provide a few (and I'll attempt to keep it brief).

A reminder--I've never actually gone into labor before. My water broke with both of my other girls 12 and 10 days early, so I was a little nervous about the whole thing. On Tuesday, 10 days early, I had my membranes stripped at 11 am. I was a 3+ and 90% effaced then. I was crampy all day after that. D and I had lunch out, then I came home and slept for 3 hours. (Little did I know how fortunate that was!) Around 4 in the afternoon I started having mini-contractions. They were short, not terribly painful, but about 7 minutes apart. My mom said they sounded like Braxton-Hicks to her. I almost quit timing them, but ended up sticking with it. Mom, the girls and D went out to the pool for a swim and I went upstairs to do my hair (just in case). Pretty quickly I was having minute-long, very painful contractions. I went out to the pool and told D we'd better head for the hospital.

We met my dad halfway there at his office. Since he was the on-call doc, I decided to just have him check me. I was at a 5 and in quite a bit of pain. I looked at D and said, "Let's just have him do the delivery." I really wanted my dad to be the doctor. So that's what we did. We made it to the hospital, got checked in, and got the epidural when I was a 7. Since I was group b strep positive, we needed to get the antibiotic in 4 hours prior to delivery. The goal was 11:05 pm. Because of that, my dad didn't break my water. I was at a 9 for a couple of hours but with my awesome epidural, I didn't feel a thing. At 10:50 it was looking pretty safe, so we broke my water. That was it. I tried not to want to push, but it was so uncomfortable. I finally had to interrupt everyone's happy conversations so I could PUSH. Only 3 contractions later (5-7 minutes or so), out she came. (11:07--just made the deadline). The pushing was painful, but I guess I can't complain about 7 minutes of torture. My dad is the most awesome OB ever (not that I'm biased) and it was a great experience having him deliver--we invited my mom in as well since she's never seen him "in action" so that was cool too.

I missed my friends coming and bringing Ben and Jerry's, but it was such a refreshing change to have my family nearby and to have them all stopping by to visit.

Anyway, all is well. Thanks for the words of love and encouragement. You are great friends! Oh, and I'll send an email with her name. It took us until last night to have it finalized.