November 18, 2009
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| 1:45am, Mama's ready to meet her baby! |
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| Last photo as a family of 2! |
So they checked, and within 2 hours I had gone from 4 to 9.5cm...just a 'lip' of the cervix left. Ew. I remember being grossed out by that image and terminology even then. Seriously?
The baby's heartbeat was suddenly dropping at every contraction, and they were worried about infection since it had been so long since my water had broken, so they pushed a bag of IV antibiotics into me as quickly as they could.
15 minutes later, the urge was even more intense, and suddenly a whole team of people swarmed in and were setting everything up - the bassinet/warmer, the table & tray with all the tools, the bed came down, and Dr. B walked in just as everything was set up. It was controlled chaos at its very definition.
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| Room is set and ready for baby! And the Plan for the Day says "Have a baby." |
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| Contractions were just a little strong at this point! |
Are you ready, Jen?
Oh yes. I really have to push.
At that moment, C came to the right side of my bed, grabbed my hand, and we looked so deeply into each other's eyes that I swear I saw his soul. And it was beautiful. He was so excited, so proud, so scared, so happy - and I loved him more in that moment than I ever had before.
Then I told him to grab the camera and make sure he had it ready. ha. Control freak.
I was suddenly calm and ready. My body took over, and knew what to do for me in that moment.
Dr. B said we'd take a practice push, just to get things moving. But I apparently didn't need practicing! I don't remember how many times I pushed (it was in sets of 3 - push, quick breath, push, quick breath, push, rest). But it wasn't a lot. C was right next to me, cheering me on quietly, looking down when he could finally see the head (props to him!), and holding my right hand in his left, my right leg in his right. The epi had left my right side completely useless, though I could feel my left side a bit.
About 20 minutes later, Dr. B said "This is it - one last push, Jen. Are you ready?"
PUSH.
Hold on, Jen. Stop pushing. The cord is wrapped around the baby's neck.
So scary. Like unbelievable, momentary panic. I looked down and saw her head - Dr. B tilted it back, pulled the cord off effortlessly (that's why the heart beat was dropping, it turns out), and told me one last time to push. It was 2:30 am, November 18, 2009.
And then she was here.
My perfect little baby girl.
And I loved her. Instantly and completely, I loved her.
Welcome to the world, little one.
She came out WAILING. Blood curdling, non-stop screams that even the nurses were surprised by! She was wiped down and plopped on my chest, still screaming. I shhhed her, said hello, told her happy birthday, and that I loved her. Chris cut the umbilical cord, and they took her away after a minute or two to weigh her and give her the initial Apgar tests.
I have to admit, pushing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. About 20 to 25 minutes or so... Even Dr. B was surprised at how quickly it all went, especially after all we'd been through in the previous 36 hours (almost to the minute, from water break to birth, actually!), and since it was my first child. I remember her joking - maybe next time you actually go into labor before your water breaks, huh? But my baby was finally ready, and nothing was going to stop her! After all that time, she was here!
I don't know why, but I was calm. I was emotional internally, I suppose, but I was just...peaceful. I wasn't scared, or in pain, or anything. I was just in such a state of bliss, and awe, and pure joy, that I was absolutely fine.
They asked us what her name was, and we both kind of just looked at each other. We knew what her middle name was going to be from the day we found out she was a girl - Josephine, after my grandmother who had died just a few weeks before we found out we were pregnant. I knew she had a hand in it all, and we wanted to honor her. But for the baby's first name... Neither of us wanted to say it out loud....We were down to 2 names, and I think if one of us said the opposite of what the other one was thinking, we would have felt bad! But finally I said to Chris, Alexandra? He smiled, nodded, and kissed my head. And that was it. Alexandra Josephine was named. And she was ours.
She was 6lbs 15.7 oz, so they said she was 7lbs even and 20 inches long. The exact average size! But she was anything but average. She was perfect. We counted her fingers and toes a million times, just to make sure. I kissed her perfect lips and little cheeks, and teeny fingers over and over again. I rocked her, and probably said "Hi Allie! Hi baby! Hi Alexandra! It's Mommy! You're here! Happy Birth Day! I love you!" a hundred times. We looked at her deep blue eyes for the first time, and I never wanted to look away. It was amazing. I probably overuse that word, but I don't know how else to describe so many things about that day, about her, about how my entire world changed in a split second.
We waited a while to call our parents. We just basked in her beauty, in our love, and in the sheer craziness of what had just happened. All her tests came back fine, and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I don't remember much else about that morning - when we gave her a bath, what time I could finally get up (though I do remember having 2 nurses help me, in case I fell on the way to the bathroom since my epi was still sort of wearing off), what we said to our parents (we finally called about 4 or 4:30am)... I really don't have a clue. I think it's strange that I remember so much detail up until she is born, but once she's here I can't remember the order of stuff that happened. All I cared about was that she was here, she was perfect, and she was mine.
So that's the story of my little Allie's birth.
Nothing traumatic, just a long awaited arrival of a beautiful, perfect baby girl.
Mike even dubbed her "Alexandra the Late" for making us wait so long!
My family came later in the morning, about 9am, C's a little after noon for the first time. Both came back later that night, and C's brother Tim drove down around dinner time from MA. My best friend Amanda came after work- drove 2 hours one way just to sit and be with us for about 30 minutes. And that's why she is my best friend.
Thursday we had a few visitors - family, mostly, but it was a day of learning to diaper, bathe, nurse, swaddle, and just holding her, staring at her, taking pictures.... It's all a blur, really. I remember showering eventually. I don't remember if I ever slept. Thursday night, I sent C home to sleep - one of us needed to be rested! - and get Jethro from boarding so C could introduce Allie's scent to him before he met her.
And Friday, November 20, 2009 - my due date - it was time to go home!
She didn't pee until Friday morning, right before we left (um, plenty of poop. Gross.), and they were concerned... turns out it was because of the antibiotics they pushed right before she was born. She was a little jaundiced and her bilirubin levels were elevated, but it wasn't enough to have her go under the lights.
I brought a beautiful white footie pj type outfit for her to go home in - we expected her to be kind of big, but she was teeny, and she was swimming in the outfit. Her foot poked out of the crotch, in between two snaps, and C and I giggled hysterically. There were so many fits of giggles the first few days (in the middle of the night, one of us said 'whose baby is this?!' and we both lost it!) - out of nerves or exhaustion or whatever it was, we shared a lot of laughs. We went to the parenting exit class, had one more meeting with the lactation consultant, got our stuff together and left.
Our tiny peanut in her going home outfit
Just like that, we were on our own - how scary is that?! They let you take the baby with you!
It was a gorgeous day out. Simply beautiful. I sat in the back seat with Alexandra on the drive.....and then we were home. A new family of 4 (Jethro included, of course!). Scared, exhausted, but ready and totally in love, C and I started our parenthood journey.
Meeting her big brother for the first time.
And, as much as you hear this, I truly, truly can not believe it's been a year. That was the absolute fastest 365 days of my life.
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| Our first family photo, when she was about 6 hours old. |
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