Our Newest Treasure
After all the waiting, both patient and impatiently, the baby is finally here!!!
So without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you all:
So without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you all:
Helyn Saphira Marie
Our precious jewel ;)
Born August 6, 2008 [08-06-08]
5:59pm 7lbs 12oz, 21 1/4 inches
(our biggest baby!)
Our precious jewel ;)
Born August 6, 2008 [08-06-08]5:59pm 7lbs 12oz, 21 1/4 inches
(our biggest baby!)
As for information on the actual birth, for those of you who are interested... I mentioned in my last post I had a doctors appointment on Wednesday afternoon and when he checked me I was 3cm dilated. Now at this point [1:15pm] I wasn't actually having any contractions and by the end of the appointment he had made arrangements to induce me on Thursday morning - which would have been the 7th. I went from the doctors office to my mom's office to let her know how things had gone and to visit for a few minutes. By 2pm I'd started to have a few contractions but I didn't think too much about them as they weren't really all that different from what I'd been having for the last week or so.
By 2:30pm I knew they were different, they just felt different and for those of you who've had kids you'll understand what I mean. Mom had an appointment so I left her to head home before 3pm. When I talked to her and to Obie next at 3:30 I asked them to come to the house because although I didn't think it was time to head into the hospital I was getting to the point already that I didn't want to be by myself. Obie made it to the house just before 4pm and Mom got there about 10 minutes later. Obie only managed to shave and change his clothes before I'd decided that maybe we should head to the hospital after all, just in case, and so the three of us got into the van and headed over.
Well, I checked in down at Emergency and they sent me right up stairs to the delivery suite. When we walked through the double doors to the delivery ward the digital clock at the entrance read 4:44pm. If you've attended a birth or delivered at the LRH you'll know that when you get there they hook you up to a monitor to track your contractions for 10-20minutes unless you're obviously delivering and practically ready to push. So they hook me up and check me and right then I was 5-6cm dilated and my contractions were roughly 1.5minutes apart... needless to say, they moved immediately to the actual delivery room.
I get up on the bed in this second room and suffer through two or three more contractions as the nurses get situated, Obie tries to get me settled and comfortable (bless his soul, I'm not sure if he really thinks that a woman in labor can actually be comfortable), and mom is on the phone telling Meagan and my dad that if they come right away to the hospital they might make it before I have the baby. I think it was probably about 5:25pm at this point but I'm not absolutely sure. So the nurse gets me reconnected to the monitor (which keeps track of contraction duration and frequency, and monitors the baby's heart rate to ensure that it's not in distress) and checks me again to find that I'm now a "good" 8cm dilated and she calls for the doctor.
Thankfully, he gets there within a couple of minutes and when he checks me he immediately broke my water since, as with both my other deliveries, it hadn't happened on it's own. So he breaks the water and then says "well just call me when she's ready" and turns to leave. He hadn't even got to the door when I started contracting again and he waited to see how it went, then changed his parting remark to "just give me a shout, I'll be right around here." I think it was three contractions later when I announced that I felt like I needed to push and they called him back. He really must have been standing in the hallway because he was there by the time the next contraction started. They (being the two nurses who ended up being in the room and the doctor) asked me to wait through two more contractions while they finished getting every organized and in place before giving me the go-ahead to push.
As I started to push I happened to glance at the clock, which was right above the doctors head, and it was 5:55pm. Four minutes later it was all over. Obie got to cut the cord again (he didn't get a chance to with Arora) and then I was holding my newest daughter in my arms. :) Her head was really quite blue at first, the cord had been wrapped around her neck and shoulders a bit, and she was just slightly bruised from her speedy trip through the birth canal but otherwise she was perfect and even those 'imperfections' were shortly fading.
Two days later both Saphira and I are at home; happy, healthy and really hot. My mom has the other kids out at the farm, so our first night at home is going to be a bit of an experiment to see how Saphira adjusts to the house and the heat and tomorrow night will show us how she, and Zack and Zona, will respond to the whole 'fam damily' being together. In any case, it's going to be interesting and I have no doubt that I'm going to be very busy and very tired for the foreseeable future.
So there you have it and while she may have held on for 4 days past her due date, she made up for my torture by coming as quickly as, I think, she possibly could have. And in the end I've got a healthy baby girl and that's all that really matters.
By 2:30pm I knew they were different, they just felt different and for those of you who've had kids you'll understand what I mean. Mom had an appointment so I left her to head home before 3pm. When I talked to her and to Obie next at 3:30 I asked them to come to the house because although I didn't think it was time to head into the hospital I was getting to the point already that I didn't want to be by myself. Obie made it to the house just before 4pm and Mom got there about 10 minutes later. Obie only managed to shave and change his clothes before I'd decided that maybe we should head to the hospital after all, just in case, and so the three of us got into the van and headed over.
Well, I checked in down at Emergency and they sent me right up stairs to the delivery suite. When we walked through the double doors to the delivery ward the digital clock at the entrance read 4:44pm. If you've attended a birth or delivered at the LRH you'll know that when you get there they hook you up to a monitor to track your contractions for 10-20minutes unless you're obviously delivering and practically ready to push. So they hook me up and check me and right then I was 5-6cm dilated and my contractions were roughly 1.5minutes apart... needless to say, they moved immediately to the actual delivery room.
I get up on the bed in this second room and suffer through two or three more contractions as the nurses get situated, Obie tries to get me settled and comfortable (bless his soul, I'm not sure if he really thinks that a woman in labor can actually be comfortable), and mom is on the phone telling Meagan and my dad that if they come right away to the hospital they might make it before I have the baby. I think it was probably about 5:25pm at this point but I'm not absolutely sure. So the nurse gets me reconnected to the monitor (which keeps track of contraction duration and frequency, and monitors the baby's heart rate to ensure that it's not in distress) and checks me again to find that I'm now a "good" 8cm dilated and she calls for the doctor.
Thankfully, he gets there within a couple of minutes and when he checks me he immediately broke my water since, as with both my other deliveries, it hadn't happened on it's own. So he breaks the water and then says "well just call me when she's ready" and turns to leave. He hadn't even got to the door when I started contracting again and he waited to see how it went, then changed his parting remark to "just give me a shout, I'll be right around here." I think it was three contractions later when I announced that I felt like I needed to push and they called him back. He really must have been standing in the hallway because he was there by the time the next contraction started. They (being the two nurses who ended up being in the room and the doctor) asked me to wait through two more contractions while they finished getting every organized and in place before giving me the go-ahead to push.
As I started to push I happened to glance at the clock, which was right above the doctors head, and it was 5:55pm. Four minutes later it was all over. Obie got to cut the cord again (he didn't get a chance to with Arora) and then I was holding my newest daughter in my arms. :) Her head was really quite blue at first, the cord had been wrapped around her neck and shoulders a bit, and she was just slightly bruised from her speedy trip through the birth canal but otherwise she was perfect and even those 'imperfections' were shortly fading.
Two days later both Saphira and I are at home; happy, healthy and really hot. My mom has the other kids out at the farm, so our first night at home is going to be a bit of an experiment to see how Saphira adjusts to the house and the heat and tomorrow night will show us how she, and Zack and Zona, will respond to the whole 'fam damily' being together. In any case, it's going to be interesting and I have no doubt that I'm going to be very busy and very tired for the foreseeable future.
So there you have it and while she may have held on for 4 days past her due date, she made up for my torture by coming as quickly as, I think, she possibly could have. And in the end I've got a healthy baby girl and that's all that really matters.
Comments