Quirky Quercus: Welcoming Elanor Elisabeth

Our Birth Story:

Early Monday morning (3am early), I woke up having contractions off and on and couldn't go back to sleep. I asked Jonathan to not go to work that day just in case this was the real thing and also to help time contractions. We called Cindie mid-morning to let her know what was happening and she recommended that we get some rest. It turns out to be a good that we did!

We puttered around the house during the afternoon until things picked up about 4:00. After a couple of hours of contractions between 3-5 minutes apart, we packed up to run over to the office to be checked for progress. Cindie confirmed that I was indeed in early labor and that my water had broken, probably sometime that morning. On the way out, we encountered another couple that we knew coming in for their regular checkup. We cheerfully announced that we were going to be having a baby that night. Little did we (and they) know!

Back home we went to call my mom and sisters and labor some more. Later that evening, when it looked like labor had increased in intensity again, we called the Scotts and the midwives to meet us at the birth center. It turns out that it isn't speed that matters so much as gentleness around curves.

After a couple of hours there and a rather disappointing progression, the guys went over to Elsa's house to get some sleep while the ladies practiced breathing and tried different positions. I spent the night alternately laboring in the tub and walking the halls. At one point, we encountered one of the other midwives and a doula who were there with another couple giving birth. It turns out that the couple that we had passed at Cindie's office had gone into labor later that night and barely made it to the birth center before she started pushing. Their son was born early that morning, not quite a full day before our baby made her appearance.

Jonathan arrived with our other midwife the next morning to take over. After a night of labor, I was only at 5 centimeters dilation with some suspicion of a baby with a slightly cocked head. We tried more positions, a couple of homeopathic remedies and the tub for a few more hours with the gain of a couple of centimeters more. Then there I stuck at 7 centimeters. At 5:00, we decided that, while I was still coping appropriately and the baby was doing fine, I was starting to get tired so we would give it three more hours to see if anything happened and then consider other interventions to move things along. I got back in the tub to see if I could relax some more and discovered that it is indeed possible to sleep between contractions. I was refreshed, but still showed no progress.

At 8:30, we decided that it was time to transfer to the hospital to try a bit of pitocin to even out and focus the contractions. If I thought that the car ride to the birth center was bad, it doesn't compare to the one to the hospital. Fortunately, my mom rode with us so that she could help keep me on track with breathing and Jonathan could concentrate on driving.

We got to the hospital and they hooked me up to the IV and monitors. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural along with the pitocin. After all of the horror stories that I have heard about pitocin-aided contractions, I was pretty nervous about how much worse they might be. After some encouragement, I decided to wait and see how things went. I'm so glad! It turned out that if they were worse, it happened so gradually that I didn't even notice.

I must have given the nurse quietly controlled fits since I wanted to labor leaning on Jonathan which caused the monitors to keep slipping.

Jonathan was amazing through the entire day. Poor guy! As we got further into the process, it got so that I didn't want anyone else but him and he hardly even got a bathroom break all day.
Looking up and smiling at each other between contractions:

Finally, Cindie pronounced me at a mildly uneven 10 centimeters and I got permission to push if I felt like it. Almost immediately, I did. After an hour to hour and a half (the stories that I heard later differed) of pushing (my sisters' pectoral muscles will never be the same), we got to see our little girl's head crowning and with one final effort, she was out and crying!

We had kept her name a secret between the two of us and agreed that Jonathan would introduce her by name to everyone who was there when she was born. I kept saying "Little girl, little girl" as she was handed up to me so that I wouldn't say her name. I will also admit that I looked at a strategic area to be sure that the girl that we were expecting was what we got!

Very tired but enjoying the high of giving birth and seeing our daughter for the first time:

Beautiful Elanor Elisabeth was born in the hospital after approximately 36 hours of labor and an hour and a half of pushing. She was 7lbs, 4 oz and 19 inches long with brown hair and blue eyes. She was also born with her hand in this position:

Little stinker--which was probably why it took so long.

After getting cleaned up and trying to nurse, everyone was ready to rest. Jonathan took a turn holding her as we all fell asleep.

We didn't expect that the birth would take that long and were a bit disappointed that we ended up needing to transfer to the hospital. But we did it (mostly) naturally and came out of the experience with our precious daughter in good shape.

The Scotts at the birth center:

Gary was a big encouragement to Jonathan and Barbara got me through that first night of labor with her doula expertise.

Cindie and Camille at the hospital: