Baby Elizabeth is Here!
Baby Elizabeth arrived at 4:46 pm on Saturday June 15th. She is a big girl, 8 lbs 3 oz and 22 in. She is a fabulous eater and is working on learning to sleep in her own bed. The kids all love her so much (just like the parents).
Her birth was quite an experience. We thought after four kids, we had this down, but she was determined to do things her own way.
The first three kids all had very similar labors: Alison woke up knowing she was in labor, contractions got stronger and more frequent for several hours, eventually we went in and she used her hypnosis (or an epidural) to make it through transition and pushed the baby out really fast. Gideon bucked the trend by giving Alison contractions for an hour and then nothing for several hours for two days straight, and she didn't realize that she was progressing until she hit transition. We went to the midwife and quickly pushed him out. The midwife asked us to try to get there a little earlier this time!
Elizabeth started off like Gideon: Wednesday Alison started having contractions off and on, but they never quite progressed far enough for her to say it was real labor. But Thursday Timmy woke up with acute tonsillitis, to the point that it was borderline whether we needed to take him to the emergency room before the doctor opened. He was unable to swallow and drooling and said it felt like something was stuck in his throat. But the swelling went down as he woke up, so we waited and took him to the regular doctor. They could do a quick culture for strep throat and it wasn't that, but to find out whether it was bacterial or viral takes longer. Since he was so bad in the morning, the doctor decided to start him on antibiotics anyway. He said that if it was viral, it wouldn't be so bad the next morning, but if it was bacterial and we didn't do antibiotics, it could get worse and that would be dangerous. So he started antibiotics, and they worked miracles. He had been living on constant Tylenol, and a few hours after starting antibiotics, he said he didn't need the Tylenol at his next dose and felt fine. It was wonderful!
So Alison stopped having contractions entirely on Thursday, probably because of stress. We decided Wednesday had just been a fluke.
Friday Timmy felt fine and Alison's on-and-off contractions started again. We decided to go for a walk Friday night for our date, and Alison was having fairly strong contractions every ten minutes or so. Since we were trying to go in to the birth center a little earlier, we had to discuss whether it was time to send the kids to Aunt Amy's or not. We finally decided to send them to spend the night, and if nothing came of it we'd just pick them up in the morning. Mike went to drop them off, and as soon as he walked out the door, the contractions stopped dead. Alison went for another walk and bounced on the birth ball, but nothing happened. So we went to bed.
Alison woke up at 2 am with contractions again. She timed them, and they were 8 minutes apart for an hour straight, so she decided it was time to call the midwife, trying to get there a little earlier than they had with Gideon. We went in at 3:30 am. Alison thought we'd have a baby around breakfast time and pick the kids up after lunch. Ha!
Alison had irregular contractions for the next few hours. Finally at 7 am she asked the midwife to check her progress. She was dilated to 7 cm and 90% effaced, but her cervix was far back, preventing the baby from putting good pressure on the cervix and making progress. The midwife suggested some different positions that would move the cervix forward, and we tried those for a few hours. Sometimes the contractions would get together and go faster, and then sometimes they would slow down. Alison got some naps when they were slow and kept trying the different positions in between.
Finally around lunchtime the midwife suggested that we might need to consider more options. Alison asked for another dilation check and she was only at 8 or 9 cm, so she'd made almost no progress in the last five hours. We decided that it was time to break her water and see if that helped. (The midwife said her amniotic sac was really strong and hard to break because of good nutrition :).) That finally got the baby into a better position and good contractions started quickly. In an hour or so we hit transition (the part where Alison decides that there is no way she can do this and she wants to go to the hospital and get an epidural - it's a purely emotional reaction regardless of how long or hard the labor has been, she had it with Gideon as the first moment she realized she was in real labor) and got into the birth tub.
Another hour or so and it was time to push. For all the other kids, the pushing contractions basically felt like they never stopped and Alison shoved them out in minutes. Elizabeth had very distinct contractions and breaks between them, and it took much longer. Pushing is always the hardest part, but she crowned much slower and less painfully than the others. Then her shoulder got stuck, which was awful, and we had one minute of frantic pushing before she finally came free.
She was unusually blue and had a little trouble getting good first breaths, so the midwife and birth assistants were rubbing her to stimulate her. She pinked up really well after that and was fine for the five minute APGAR. Alison felt like it took forever for the placenta to come out (like everything else in this labor), but finally it did. Alison also bled more than the midwife liked, but she responded to the Pitocin shot they give after the baby's born and stopped bleeding quickly. Then, finally, everything was fine and they could relax.
So it was thirteen plus hours at the birth center to get this baby out. Crazy! Alison is very grateful that her hypnosis worked so well. For most of the day it was actually almost like having an epidural and she could talk and do things during labor until after they broke the bag of waters. She is also very happy that we had a midwife who was patient and let the baby take her time.
Mike and Alison are both still pretty tired, but Baby Elizabeth made some progress toward napping in her bassinet today, so maybe they'll get a few solid chunks of sleep tonight. (You know, a whole two hours or something.) The kids love their baby and want to cuddle and hold her all the time. She is happy to be around them and try to peek at them when she hears their voices. She latches on well and sucks strongly, but she might be like Gideon and need a pacifier, since she wants to nurse for an hour at a stretch and Alison thinks it can't take that long to get enough food. We'll give it a few days and see.
Tomorrow at 8 am we have an electrician coming to fix some outlets in our kitchen that suddenly went dead last week. Great timing! The midwife is coming to our house for the two day checkup, as well, so tomorrow is going to be busy. Mike gets two weeks of paternity leave, so if he can catch up on sleep, things should go pretty smoothly after that while Alison is recovering.
Her birth was quite an experience. We thought after four kids, we had this down, but she was determined to do things her own way.
The first three kids all had very similar labors: Alison woke up knowing she was in labor, contractions got stronger and more frequent for several hours, eventually we went in and she used her hypnosis (or an epidural) to make it through transition and pushed the baby out really fast. Gideon bucked the trend by giving Alison contractions for an hour and then nothing for several hours for two days straight, and she didn't realize that she was progressing until she hit transition. We went to the midwife and quickly pushed him out. The midwife asked us to try to get there a little earlier this time!
Elizabeth started off like Gideon: Wednesday Alison started having contractions off and on, but they never quite progressed far enough for her to say it was real labor. But Thursday Timmy woke up with acute tonsillitis, to the point that it was borderline whether we needed to take him to the emergency room before the doctor opened. He was unable to swallow and drooling and said it felt like something was stuck in his throat. But the swelling went down as he woke up, so we waited and took him to the regular doctor. They could do a quick culture for strep throat and it wasn't that, but to find out whether it was bacterial or viral takes longer. Since he was so bad in the morning, the doctor decided to start him on antibiotics anyway. He said that if it was viral, it wouldn't be so bad the next morning, but if it was bacterial and we didn't do antibiotics, it could get worse and that would be dangerous. So he started antibiotics, and they worked miracles. He had been living on constant Tylenol, and a few hours after starting antibiotics, he said he didn't need the Tylenol at his next dose and felt fine. It was wonderful!
So Alison stopped having contractions entirely on Thursday, probably because of stress. We decided Wednesday had just been a fluke.
Friday Timmy felt fine and Alison's on-and-off contractions started again. We decided to go for a walk Friday night for our date, and Alison was having fairly strong contractions every ten minutes or so. Since we were trying to go in to the birth center a little earlier, we had to discuss whether it was time to send the kids to Aunt Amy's or not. We finally decided to send them to spend the night, and if nothing came of it we'd just pick them up in the morning. Mike went to drop them off, and as soon as he walked out the door, the contractions stopped dead. Alison went for another walk and bounced on the birth ball, but nothing happened. So we went to bed.
Alison woke up at 2 am with contractions again. She timed them, and they were 8 minutes apart for an hour straight, so she decided it was time to call the midwife, trying to get there a little earlier than they had with Gideon. We went in at 3:30 am. Alison thought we'd have a baby around breakfast time and pick the kids up after lunch. Ha!
Alison had irregular contractions for the next few hours. Finally at 7 am she asked the midwife to check her progress. She was dilated to 7 cm and 90% effaced, but her cervix was far back, preventing the baby from putting good pressure on the cervix and making progress. The midwife suggested some different positions that would move the cervix forward, and we tried those for a few hours. Sometimes the contractions would get together and go faster, and then sometimes they would slow down. Alison got some naps when they were slow and kept trying the different positions in between.
Finally around lunchtime the midwife suggested that we might need to consider more options. Alison asked for another dilation check and she was only at 8 or 9 cm, so she'd made almost no progress in the last five hours. We decided that it was time to break her water and see if that helped. (The midwife said her amniotic sac was really strong and hard to break because of good nutrition :).) That finally got the baby into a better position and good contractions started quickly. In an hour or so we hit transition (the part where Alison decides that there is no way she can do this and she wants to go to the hospital and get an epidural - it's a purely emotional reaction regardless of how long or hard the labor has been, she had it with Gideon as the first moment she realized she was in real labor) and got into the birth tub.
Another hour or so and it was time to push. For all the other kids, the pushing contractions basically felt like they never stopped and Alison shoved them out in minutes. Elizabeth had very distinct contractions and breaks between them, and it took much longer. Pushing is always the hardest part, but she crowned much slower and less painfully than the others. Then her shoulder got stuck, which was awful, and we had one minute of frantic pushing before she finally came free.
She was unusually blue and had a little trouble getting good first breaths, so the midwife and birth assistants were rubbing her to stimulate her. She pinked up really well after that and was fine for the five minute APGAR. Alison felt like it took forever for the placenta to come out (like everything else in this labor), but finally it did. Alison also bled more than the midwife liked, but she responded to the Pitocin shot they give after the baby's born and stopped bleeding quickly. Then, finally, everything was fine and they could relax.
So it was thirteen plus hours at the birth center to get this baby out. Crazy! Alison is very grateful that her hypnosis worked so well. For most of the day it was actually almost like having an epidural and she could talk and do things during labor until after they broke the bag of waters. She is also very happy that we had a midwife who was patient and let the baby take her time.
Mike and Alison are both still pretty tired, but Baby Elizabeth made some progress toward napping in her bassinet today, so maybe they'll get a few solid chunks of sleep tonight. (You know, a whole two hours or something.) The kids love their baby and want to cuddle and hold her all the time. She is happy to be around them and try to peek at them when she hears their voices. She latches on well and sucks strongly, but she might be like Gideon and need a pacifier, since she wants to nurse for an hour at a stretch and Alison thinks it can't take that long to get enough food. We'll give it a few days and see.
Tomorrow at 8 am we have an electrician coming to fix some outlets in our kitchen that suddenly went dead last week. Great timing! The midwife is coming to our house for the two day checkup, as well, so tomorrow is going to be busy. Mike gets two weeks of paternity leave, so if he can catch up on sleep, things should go pretty smoothly after that while Alison is recovering.
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