Hooray, hooray - our baby girl is here!!! She arrived on June 20th, 2011 at 4:17 in the morning. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy Birthday sweet Emma! Happy birthday to you!! Today we are celebrating her 1 week birthday. And quite a week it has been! We'll start from the beginning.
Melissa began having contractions on Sunday the 19th, Father's Day, at around 5:30 in the morning. I thought, "how cool would it be to have our baby on Father's Day?" Best Father's Day present ever! Well, as you already know it wasn't meant to be. She ended up being the best day-after-Fathers-Day present ever. :) So, Sunday morning gave way to the afternoon and Melissa's contractions were becoming consistently longer, more regular, and closer together. We did all the things normal parents-to-be do; I went outside and mowed the lawn and cleaned out the gutters and Melissa baked a delicious pan of cookie bars! Around 2 in the afternoon we both knew where this was headed and between contractions began to tidy up a bit and gather our hospital things. At 4:30 pm it was go time! So we loaded up and headed to Abbot Northwestern Hospital were she was checked for dialation and admitted right away. We were put in the delivery room and Melissa labored for a couple more hours before having an epidural around 7:30 pm. Emma was what they called "sunny side up" or "posterior", meaning that she was facing forward with her head against Melissa's spine and tailbone. This isn't ideal; normally for a baby to move smoothly through the birth canal they should be facing the mother's spine. When they are posterior, mothers often have "back labor" which is classified by extreme back pain during contractions. Melissa will tell you that symptomatically this was the case. Needless to say, the epidural was effective and very welcome. Melissa had had enough at that point and the epidural allowed her to comfortably continue labor as her body did what it needed to in terms of cervical dialation and dropping farther into the birth canal.
To this point Melissa's water had not broken and the baby was still quite a ways up in the birth canal. The plan was to have the epidural to relieve pain, then the doctor was going to break Melissa's water to allow the baby to descend and speed up labor. Nature intervened however, and Melissa's water broke on its own not a minute after the anasthesiologist had left the room. Things seemed to progress slowly for us first timers but we were re-assured by the people in the room who had done this a couple hundred times that everything was normal and right on schedule. At 2:20 a.m. Melissa was given the green light to begin pushing, and pushing she did!! She was an all-star! She pushed on and off for a little under 2 hours until the sweetest miracle in all the world began to cry at 4:17 a.m. Emma was a little bluish right away but the nurses were pro's and cleared her lungs; she pinked up in no time and we got to finally meet our precious child.
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| Emma weighed in at 8lbs 12 oz and was 20 inches long. |
The plus side to having a baby at 4:17 in the morning is that it buys you an extra day in the hospital which we took full advantage of. The nurses were wonderful and helped us figure out how to operate this little machine. During our stay we had a few visitors, none more excited or proud than Emma's new grandparents - John and Roz Stull.
I'm not sure if I have mentioned Melissa's pregnant posse in previous posts but they all visited and brought dinner on Tuesday night. The posse is a group of 4 women and their husbands with whom Melissa and I run around with quite a bit. Three of them, including Melissa, are Iowa Law grads and were in the same class and the 4th is a Drake Law grad who they met while studying for the bar exam. As you might have guessed, they are all pregnant and due within 2 months of each other. Chris and Lindsay have blazed the trail with their son Cole and the other two are within weeks of having their boys. It was so much fun to have them visit and we are looking forward to donig the same when they are hungry and sleep deprived! Here is a great picture of the group (taken with an auto timer!)
I don't think any of my friends were more excited to meet Emma than Peter and his wife Ana. Pete was almost beside himself when I handed her over. We were discharged on Wednesday afternoon and made the long drive home. Well, it is 5 miles only, but it might as well have been a 100 mile drive along a shear mountain cliff - it almost gave me a heart attack! Emma loved it though, she was wide awake and very curious about the outside world. We managed to make it home without incident and showed Emma her new digs.
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| The girls doting. |
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| Dad is reading her a book called On The Farm |
A quick shout out to my wonderful wife and Emma's terrific mother - Melissa. They say you can't pick your parents but Emma has hit the mommy jackpot. And it is true, you can't pick your parents but in my case I did get to pick my partner and I've picked well. Melissa is the best mother, wife, teammate, and best friend a guy could ask for. Between Emma and myself we ask a lot of her and she handles it all with grace and a loving smile. One thing that has been really fun for me and that I've enjoyed is watching her be a mom.
Hugs and kisses from Jason, Melissa, and of course Emma!
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