Best Valentine's Day Ever

I miss blogging. But without thinking about it, I took a maternity leave from it to adjust to motherhood. It occurred to me that life, home, hobbies, etc dont pause whenever convenient. Our lives have been nonstop since, well always. I will be getting back into the swing of things. There are a couple awesome challenges going on currently that I wanna jump in on. Although I haven't been blogging, I've been reading blogs thanks to google reader on my phone.

At the end of January, my father-in-law Mike went into the emergency room with shortness of breath and back pain. A week later he ended up getting triple bypass surgery. We asked Ellie to wait to be born until after her grandpa was home recovering, at least. He was released to a skilled nursing/rehab place Saturday night, the 12th. The place was a wreck and he refused to even stay the night. (they had him checked in under his brothers name, didn't have his meds, still hadn't made his bed 4 hours after he arrived and the nursing staff wad fighting with management.) So even though he still had a hard recovery road ahead of him and our baby was due anytime, he came home. My mother in law Connie was able to take a bunch of time off work and my husband works from home and I'm not working so we knew we could handle him.

As requested, Ellie waited until her grandpa was home, we didn't need family in 2 hospitals in 2 towns. We spent Sunday the 13th of february with Mike down at the house (we live on the same property) Mikey had gone up to work in the shop when at 11:20 pm I decided to go home. I stood up and my water broke!
Connie called Mikey as I waddled to the bathroom to get a towel. He came down to walk me up to the loft. We finished packing and drove to the hospital.

I had always known I would strive for a natural birth. The documentary The Business of Being Born only solidified my views on birth. We read bunches of books and planned out how I thought I wanted things to go. We kept an open mind about everything since "life is what happens when your busy making other plans" we learned different laboring positions, relaxation techniques, and breathing excersises at childbirth class.
We packed all kinds of distractions and massage tools.

I hadn't had any contractions until we had gotten in the car and they were 3 minutes apart. They were consistent as we got checked in and settled into our labor and delivery room.

I had planned to stay up and moving around to help ease pain/ distract myself and help things moving thanks to gravity. On our way in it occurred to me that it was late, I was going to go up to bed before my water broke. I was concerned that I would get tired out so I decided to start off resting between contractions before they got too bad. Things became a blur soon after we were settled. Magically I was able to actually sleep, unmedicated between many of the contractions. I spent a lot of time in the jacuzzi it was the most helpful. I also enjoyed kneeling on the couch/bed under the window, looking out at Mill Creek in the night time. We didn't use any of the distractions or massage aides we'd brought.

My midwife arrived and we decided to not bother checking my cervix until we thought I was much closer, based on pain and pressure changes.

At one point I felt strong urges to push and it felt like the contractions jumped up a few notches. The midwife checked me and I was 8cm. I'm not sure how much time passed, less than 45 minutes I think, I stayed in bed so the nurse could monitor Ellie's heartrate. She got concerned and put me on oxygen. The midwife checked me and said I was ready to start pushing, less than 7 hours from my water breaking. I couldn't believe it had been 7 hours it didn't feel like it had been that long. I was thrilled though. I was worried about a long drawn out exhausting 19 hour labor. I started pushing. About 5 or 6 contractions later I had my daughter on my chest!

I had read about delaying cord clamping and the midwife showed Mikey how to feel for blood pumping through the cord and when it had finished, she clamped it and he cut the cord. There is no medical reason for the cord to be clamped immediately it just became part of standard procedure for most OBs as they rush through the after birth stuff. Studies found that delaying clamping the cord can prevent anemia for up to 6 months.

We had thought it would be neat for Mikey to catch Ellie but she was so quick, and our midwife had to do a quick somersault with Ellie to get her cord untwisted.

We cried. She was all wiped off and started breastfeeding right away. We snuggled and rested and gazed and loved eachother for a couple hours before we were moved up to the mother/baby room. We got settled and nursed a bit more and napped.

We were so proud to have gone all natural and I'm sure our birth wad so perfect because we allowed my body to do all the work, uninterrupted.

She and I got pretty good at breastfeeding, had a little. Problem with latch on one side but we stuck it out. 5 days later we met with a lactation nurse at our pediatrician office to get some tips and have her weight checked. She wasn't concerned with our progress so far and eased some concerns we had. A few days later we had another appointment and the lactation nurse decided we didn't need her, we were old pros by that point.

At her 2 week check up, she had gained a pound and 1 3/4 inches.

Miss Ellie is 5 weeks yesterday. I still get lost in her face at times.

We have had some rough nights with her colic but were learning and adjusting. We tried mylicon drops, they didn't help at all. I'm currently avoiding dairy to see if that is bothering her.
We are going to start cloth diapering soon. I ordered some diapers today finally. I'll be blogging about that I'm sure.