Well, our sweet Ellie Kate decided to join us EARLY! So, she WAS listening to me! Such a good girl. Ellie came at 38 weeks 6 days. It was a Wednesday. I left work and went to a prenatal massage at 6:00. I had our massage therapist work some trigger points that supposedly induce labor...well, I got home at 7:15 and at 8:20, my water broke!!!! We had finished dinner and Paul was starting to talk about what our weekend to-do list needed to be (ie. buying snacks for the labor bag, stocking the fridge so we would have food after coming home from the hospital, etc.), as he is saying this, I felt a strange "pop" and next thing I knew, I was peeing myself. What a strange feeling this was. Our labor instructor told us that only 10% of pregnant women's water actually break. Paul started freaking out (ok, so did I) as he had not packed anything. I was determined to take a shower, so I did. Paul called the hospital and they instructed us to come in right away, and that we needed to be there within the hour (well, it took us about 45 minutes to get it together). I was still feeling no contractions, but the anxiety and anticipation of the pain to come was worrying me. When we arrived shortly after 9:00, I was already 4 cm dilated, and still feeling nothing. The monitors were showing some intense contractions, so I was feeling good about this! At 10:30 that all changed! Wow...my goal was to experience labor and give it a go before deciding about an epidural. At 12:40 and 7 cm dilated, I called it. I NEEDED that epidural. This is where I am unhappy about my experience...I will spare the details, but it took ONE AND A HALF HOURS to actually get my epidural, as the anesthesiologist was tied up with a mother delivering multiples. The worst part, was I had already been hooked up to the monitors, IVs, etc, so I had to labor until 2:00 am IN A BED! It was horrible. Paul was so wonderful, and his job was to squeeze the heck out of my sacrum and SI joints every 2 minutes...I know he was sore, but didn't say a word about it. Finally, after 2 tries (the first epidural only numbed half of me) I was comfortable. A short 2 hours later (4:00 am) I was fully dialed and the nurse had me start pushing. The problem is I had just received two doses of an epidural, and could not feel where to push. What a weird thing to know what you needed to do to push and not be able to feel it. This was very frustrating to me, and the worst part, is that the nurse was getting frustrated with ME...the laboring patient! It took her 2.5-3 hours of pushing to finally ask for my epidural to be turned down. Lucky for me, it was now 7 am and time for a nurse shift change. We loved our new nurse, and now with enough feeling to know what I was doing, and the scare of a c-section from the doctor, I had that baby out at 8:12 am. Whew...already one night's sleep GONE! But, we got a beautiful baby girl out of the deal. Totally worth it!
Does he looked freaked out or what!!
Last belly shot and comfy laboring outfit...better than the hospital gown!
Here's our peanut...just about 6 pounds 5 ounces, 19.5 inches long
Her little face says it all! And I agree...that was rough!
Daddy's girl already!
We stayed at the hospital for the next two nights. This hospital has a "room-in" philosophy, so we had the baby with us in our room 24-7. This was great, except a few hours of sleep would have been nice! However I was more confident bringing her home as I had her with me constantly and we were comfortable taking care of her by ourselves. Our parents were dying not being there, and we missed not seeing them. We had lots of other visitors, which was nice. It is fun to show her off.
Someone's hooked already!
Jaimy, Sean and Melia come for a snuggle
Beth and Abby came hours after she was born...my face was still swollen from pushing and pushing and pushing!
And then, they made us go home...SCARY!!!
First family photo!
Our first week at home has been spent trying to figure each other out. There has not been too much sleeping, but that was to be expected. Paul, who has never been around a newborn before, has been AMAZING with her. He just jumped right in, and has not stopped. She seems to cry when she is hungry (which is a lot). Her weight dropped to 5 pounds and 12 ounces before we left, so we are doing some supplementing with a bottle and formula. Nursing is not easy, and we are not sure my milk will come in enough to exclusively breastfeed, which is very sad to me, but we must feed our girl, so I will do what ever is necessary. We are still giving it time, and for now I am pumping and supplementing. Time will tell. We have been busy snuggling and continuing to show her off. Lucky for us, Megan was down from Vail, and got to spend some time with her.
Megan and Ellie
Our second day home, we even ventured out to the Koski's for dinner. Nora loved seeing the baby, and would say "baby" over and over and point to her. It was super cute!
Ahhhhh, milk coma :)
She does a lot of this...
And always has her little hands by her face.
Ellie LOVES having her hair washed and her sponge baths. Can't wait for a real bath!
Of course, Paul had to dress her up for the big game...
Porter is scared of her...shocking!
Ally could really care less.
Sleeping away...she can get her arms out of any swaddle!
Nothing fits her yet, but we tried anyway!
Well, I could post a million more photos, but will stop for now. Ellie had her newborn photo session, and could not have been more cooperative. It was two hours long, and we got the cutest pictures ever! A few are posted on our Facebook pages, and I will post the link to all of them when we get them. I can't wait! Our photographer (who did our maternity photos) is awesome, and got some amazing pictures. We have Ellie's two week pediatrician visit on the 10th, so hopefully all is well. My parents, brother and Christa come on the 11th and will likely spoil her to death! More pics to come soon!!!
