The last few days is the epitome of a blogworthy event. The birth of our first child, our daughter Elsie Lane is one of those things that completely resets you. All this while I had been cautiously optimistic that I would be ready for this – and in many ways I was – but there were a lot of moments that I will never forget.

It all started on Tuesday night when a Mandy had a few contractions, so she took a hot bath before bedtime and got some sleep until about 4am when the contractions returned. By breakfast time, we down to about 15 minutes between contractions, so we took a walk to help things along, and as the morning progressed the time between the contractions kept shortening. By early afternoon, we were down to about 6-8 minutes so we called our Doula Lisa, to let her know that things were moving along.

We met Lisa at our OB’s office for our 3:30 appointment that we had scheduled the previous week by which time we were down to 5 minutes between contractions. Dr. Swartz (Carrie) checked Mandy’s dilation and found it was already at 4cm which was really good news. So we went home with Lisa and did some pottering around and helped Mandy through the increasingly powerful contractions. She took a bath (with a popcicle) and by that time her contractions were closer to 2-3 minutes apart, so we called the hospital and headed in.

Once there we checked into our room and Mandy had another exam. After an excrutiating exam from a particularly rough nurse we got the worst news… Mandy was still dilated to 3cm…. no progress despite the more powerful and frequent contractions. So we tried some of our Bradley method techniques. Mandy took a bath and her water finally broke around 8pm so the clock started. Mandy was hooked up to the antibiotics to take care of a possible Group B Strep infection that she had tested positive for earlier.

The contractions kept progressing and we assumed this was a sign of increasing dilation. I ran out to get dinner leaving Mandy with Lisa, but by the time I returned Mandy was in far worse shape and the anesthetist was there to administer the epidural. We had gone into the labor hoping to avoid the epidural if possible, but it was clear that that part of the plan needed to be discarded as Mandy was completely vacant in pain. Lisa and I had to get inches from Mandy’s face for her to even register us as she was getting the epidural. And oh, the epidural! Five minutes after the medicine began to flow Mandy returned from that very far off place and came back to life. From our classes, this is what I had imagined “transition” to look like. Yet Mandy’s dilation in the exam following showed her at only 4-5cm – even more disappointing.

We decided to hunker down and Mandy tried to get some sleep even attached to all the monitors in the hope that by the morning she would have progressed to the next level. Lisa and I grabbed some sleep between checkups and Dr Swartz came in around 4am, even though it was her day off. We decided to insert a uterine contraction monitor to see if the contractions Mandy was having were truly strong enough. Even though the external monitor showed them to be very strong, the internal monitor showed that Mandy’s Montevideo score was quite low and presumably not strong enough for her contractions to dilate her cervix. This is in addition to the fact that Mandy’s cervix was tipped way to the back (making all the exams extremely painful for her).

So Dr. Swartz put Mandy on Pitosin in increasing doses to get her contraction levels up. Thankfully, Mandy’s magical epidural was doing it’s job and she could feel the contractions increasing, but with no pain. After four hours of Mandy’s contractions being strong enough, Dr. Swartz examined Mandy again and we got the worst news, that she was dilated now only 3-4cm and her cervix was starting to swell and the baby is transverse (sideways). At that point we had a quick conference. Mandy and the Baby were doing fine, but our options were to keep going and checking every few hours and hope something improved but risk that the cervix continued to swell, or go to the C-section.

We decided to complete our tour of all possible birthing experiences and go for the Ceasarian to avoid getting into the situation where and emergency arose. Once we made the decision, we had to wait for Dr. Plotnik to come over to help Dr. Swartz and for the OR to clear out but we were in scrubs and ready to go an hour later. There were about 10 people in the room including Mandy, Lisa and I. Mandy had a big screen up over her chest and Dr. Swartz and Dr. Plotnik worked on the other side while Lisa and I supported Mandy as they got her cleaned up. The actual operation was about 5 minutes to get Elsie out and we were ecstatic to hear the first reedy little cry. While they fixed Mandy up, I went to be with Elsie as they cleaned her and I cut her cord and took her to the recovery room to have her weighed and measured to wait for Mandy.

Our beautiful girl was absolutely perfect: born at 11:45am on April 12th. I know it’s a cliche, but really there is nothing more beautiful than that. 7lbs and 20 inches…. right in the middle and once Mandy joined us back in the recovery room we had our perfect outcome: healthy baby, healthy Mum. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a strengthening set of pipes – we still haven’t figured out who she looks like. You can be the judge!

Pam and Kevin left early in the day, so they arrived in Boulder int he early afternoon. They went home to check on Lola who has definitely figured out that something is going on! Pam and Kevin were of course overjoyed to see the first grandchild and came over shortly after we were transferred to the Mom & Baby wing. Mandy was looking great for someone who just got 15 stitches and Elsie was just the most gorgeous thing you ever saw.

The first night was pretty long as Mandy was being checked continually to make sure she was recovering ok – she was hemorrhaging more than they liked and took her off of pain medication which had some anti-coagulants until they were sure it was under control. I managed to help Mandy feed Elsie on and off during the night even when she was a little out of it, and by the morning, Mandy was given a clean bill of health and allowed to start eating and resume her pain medication. Elsie was extremely cooperative and really gave the feeding her all. Her output was equa
lly equally prodigious for the next 24 hours and she really started to come alive on Friday. Mom got a shower on Friday afternoon and Elsie got her first bath Friday night (see video) after which we got them both dressed in their own clothes instead of the hospital outfits!

The second night was much better as we only had one check up in the middle of the night and Elsie did very well to get through the night with only two feedings, so Mum and Dad felt much better in the morning. Elsie has continued to change more and more as we get to know her. So far she has been very agreeable, only crying when she wants food or has a dirty diaper!

We’re looking forward to getting her home on Sunday and introducing our cats and dog to her as well as showing her off the to world!

Go here for more pictures and a quick video of her bath.