Her arrival was very different from her brothers. With Henson I was a week overdue and spent 17 hours in labor, 14 of those hours at the hospital. This little lady arrived on her due date, and was in quite a hurry.
For those who like birth stories, here it is. For those who don't, skip to the cute pictures at the end ;)
Saturday morning I had no expectation of having a baby that day. We went to yard sales that morning, and planted vegetables in the garden after lunch. Around 3 I started noticing random painful contractions, but nothing frequent or consistent enough to pay much attention to. At 4 I ran to the store to get something for dinner. While I was out I noticed the contractions started to come about every 10 minutes. I went home and we made dinner. By the time we sat down to eat they were every 5 minutes and getting harder to sit through. So I left Henry to do the dishes while I went to try to manage them. After such a long first labor I expected to need to spend some time laboring at home before things progresseged. By 6:45 they were so intense that I knew we needed to go in. Henry loaded the car, I somehow walked to it, and we went to drop Henson off at a friends. The whole ride over I was just thinking what a wimp I felt like.y first time around I labored for 12 hours before getting any pain relief. This time I was ready to ask for the epidural after only two hours.
We got to the hospital at 7:30. I'm still not sure how I managed to walk into the building, but we made it upstairs to check in. The registration lady was so nice and could tell I was struggling to keep composed, so she sent me to be checked for admittance while Henry finished the paperwork. After being checked I was immediately taken to a delivery room. I switched beds, and the doctor was there ready to deliver before there was time for anything else (my midwife was already in another delivery and didn't make it on time). At 7:59 Elise was born, after only 3 hours of real labor and less than 30 minutes in the hospital.
She was 8 lbs, 7oz and 21 inches long. She was a little cold, so she spent some time under the warmer before we could go upstairs to our room, but that was just as well because we had to finish being admitted anyway.
We feel so lucky that everything worked out so well, that she is healthy, and so greatful for all the people who helped us with taking care of Henson and making the weekend so much easier. So welcome home Elise! We are so glad you're finally here.
