Elise Katherine is here!

A little behind the curve on this post! We had our baby GIRL on the 30th of November. I am so in love it's ridiculous! :-) I was kind of worried how I'd possibly be able to love Jackson as much as I do AND the new baby. So silly of me :-) Jackson has been such a great big brother and seems to be adjusting well. He loves helping out and kissing her and always lets me know when she wakes up.

Elise Katherine

11/30/2010

7 pounds 14 ounces

19 1/2 inches

We weren't great at keeping track of the stages this time, but that's probably because my contractions really started around midnight. So fun :-) To start from the beginning....

I had an appointment the morning of the 29th, and the midwife said I was 2 cm and maybe 50% effaced. I about started to cry in the room because I felt like I wasn't making much progress and would surely make it to Friday and have to be induced. But I had her strip my membranes to hopefully get things to move along. I had a complete breakdown in the car right after that. So hormonal :-) We went to the grocery store to stock on some more stuff and I had some cramping, which is normal after stripping the membranes. So that night I went for probably a 2 mile-ish walk. I felt NOTHING. I was again sure that nothing was happening for a while. So we watched some TV and then around 10 I kind of noticed my Braxton Hicks started to get pretty rhythmic. About every 4 minutes but not painful, just a bit tighter than normal. Decided to take a shower around 11 to help me relax and go to sleep. Wouldn't ya know as soon as I put my head on my pillow I had a couple "these are definitely more serious" kinds of contractions. Then I felt a little "gooey" down yonder so I went to the bathroom. sure enough I had my show and I told Jon that I was pretty sure that I was in labor. We called his parents to have his mom come out since we didn't know when it'd happen, but at least sometime in the next 24 hours.

Contractions started to get a little stronger and were coming ever 4 minutes and were about 30 to 45 seconds apart. I called the midwife just to get advice. I totally felt like a first time mom since this was my first time having a spontaneous labor and hadn't experienced it before (last time I was induced). She assured me I could stay at home for a while more until they were 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute and more intense. I was so bored because I was the only one awake. Well, we spent the first hour or so packing our bags and getting everything together. We totally hadn't really started anything. I had my list made, though, so I wasn't really worried :-)

So what happened next? Trying to remember :-) I think around 3 ish the contractions started to slow down to about 10 mins apart. I totally thought I was really in for a long labor. Around 5 they started to pick back up again so I called the midwife but she once again assured me that I didn't sound like I needed to come in, told me to take a shower and just wait it out some more. The pains weren't horrible so I agreed. So I took a shower and tried to lie down but it was too uncomfortable so I just stayed in the kitchen and facebooked :-) I was soooo bored. I basically just stood up and swayed back and forth to get through the contractions. Finally around 7 I said they were a little stronger and I didn't feel like getting stuck in traffic so we headed to the hospital. The contractions totally slowed down again in the car so I was sure I headed in too early. They checked me around 8:00 and I was already at a 6-7 cm and was shocked (I was sure I'd only be about a 4)! Moved to L&D and was definitely breathing through the contractions at this point. A friend of mine just did a natural childbirth and she said what helped get her through the pain was to visualize pushing the pain into the bed (she was sitting on the bed) Since I was standing I just visualized pushing the pain into the floor and it worked. My BP started to get a little high so the nurse wanted me to lie on my side on the bed. So not fun. Didn't like that one bit but finally figured out to just breath and visualize pushing the pain down into the bed through my hip. I was listening to my Ipod and the midwife asked if I was hypnobirthing or listening to something relaxing and I was like yeah, umm, no, it's some Limp Bizkit. (I decided to listen to my marathon music). She thought that was kind of funny for some reason :-)

Around 10:10, I think, I said I felt a lot of pressure on my backside, like I had to poop, so the midwife checked me. I was 9 cm and my water hadn't broke yet! So she asked if I wanted her to break it and I was like, will it make it happen faster? Of course the answer was yes and so I said umm, helz yeah, lets get this over with :-). She broke my water and HOLY HELL the contractions picked up. Within about 1 contraction I was like, I gotta push! So they made me get on my back which was oh so freakin' uncomfortable. I think I pushed through two contractions and she came out. It HURT but it felt good to push at the same time. I am pretty sure the entire floor heard me scream a couple times :-) Funny thing is I have way worse labor memories from having Jackson than I do with Elise.

She looked so small! I was sure they were going to say she was only about 7 pounds and was kind of shocked when they said she was 7.14.

All-in-all, I definitely hope to have another natural childbirth with the next ones. It was such a better experience all around not to be induced and to just get through labor on my own. Plus, I think I recovered more quickly this time. They say the epidural hinders your own hormone production and I think it really might because even though I had been awake for more than 28 hours at that point I felt totally awake and fine.

Phew, that took a while. :-) Time to get....babe needs to feed.

Oh, and during my stress test at the hospital (the day I went into labor) I found and stole a copy of Oxygen mag and it has a great at-home workout in it. I can't wait to start because IT'S TIME TO GET SCRONG!! My arms look so damn wimpy :-)