I've been missing from this forum for the past three weeks...it's time to catch up now!
We welcomed Eliza Grace into the world on December 15th. She is happy and healthy and doing great.
I think I blocked out most of the almost 40 hours of contractions by now...other than that her birth was calm, peaceful and perfect. We went to the hospital about 8 hours before she was born and I think had the first completely hands-off birth that the hospital staff had ever seen. Our birth plan was very detailed and included a lot of requests that the hospital had never dealt with before, but they worked with us and were great.
My husband used hypnobirthing techniques a lot better than I did and did an amazing job of keeping me calm as the contractions got stronger. The only time I remember seeing the nurse was when she showed us to our room. After that, it was just my mom, dh and me until the midwife arrived hours later. I sat on the birth ball and stool and got in the tub for a while. When I got out of the tub, my water broke and things progressed quickly from there. I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time and ended up pushing on my side on the bed. I only pushed for 18 minutes! I got to reach down and feel Eliza's full head of hair as she crowned and it was the most amazing feeling. My mom caught the baby and dh got to tell me that it was a girl and cut the cord. She staying on my chest (breastfed immediately!) for almost two hours before she got weighed and measured (8 pounds, 3.5 ounces and 20 inches!).
I ended up needing quite a few stitches and had a weird swelling issue that stuck with me for over a week, but I don't care! The birth and the baby were beautiful and that's all that matters.
These first few weeks have been exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, joyful, overwhelming and definitely worth it.
We welcomed Eliza Grace into the world on December 15th. She is happy and healthy and doing great.
I think I blocked out most of the almost 40 hours of contractions by now...other than that her birth was calm, peaceful and perfect. We went to the hospital about 8 hours before she was born and I think had the first completely hands-off birth that the hospital staff had ever seen. Our birth plan was very detailed and included a lot of requests that the hospital had never dealt with before, but they worked with us and were great.
My husband used hypnobirthing techniques a lot better than I did and did an amazing job of keeping me calm as the contractions got stronger. The only time I remember seeing the nurse was when she showed us to our room. After that, it was just my mom, dh and me until the midwife arrived hours later. I sat on the birth ball and stool and got in the tub for a while. When I got out of the tub, my water broke and things progressed quickly from there. I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time and ended up pushing on my side on the bed. I only pushed for 18 minutes! I got to reach down and feel Eliza's full head of hair as she crowned and it was the most amazing feeling. My mom caught the baby and dh got to tell me that it was a girl and cut the cord. She staying on my chest (breastfed immediately!) for almost two hours before she got weighed and measured (8 pounds, 3.5 ounces and 20 inches!).
I ended up needing quite a few stitches and had a weird swelling issue that stuck with me for over a week, but I don't care! The birth and the baby were beautiful and that's all that matters.
These first few weeks have been exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, joyful, overwhelming and definitely worth it.
