Here are some photos of Meredith, hope you enjoy! We are happy to be snuggled in at home and just spending time with our girls :)
Ginny is totally infatuated. She is always poking her head up to check on "baby!" and loves to touch her hair and nose and rub her tummy. It's really sweet. Ginny's even willing to share her snacks, which is a sign of real affection :)
At the Birthing Inn in Tacoma, getting ready to head home with Meredith.
Proud Daddy!
Bundled up for the car ride home.... in a way-too-big sleeper. Holy cow, you forget how tiny they are!
Mom & baby right after Meredith was born. I spent some time laboring in the water, so the room was a little steamy. Labor was really intense after we got to the birth center, and we didn't even have time to bring in our bags until after Meredith made her grand entrance, so the camera came in from a cold car into a warm room, and our first few pics are are all kind of like this. So, we just set down the camera and soaked in Meredith's first few minutes...
I had another not-exactly-textbook labor; really long early labor, and then it went extremely fast through rest of first stage labor, transition and pushing.
The birth story, if you're interested....
I've been having tons of false labor for about three weeks, and on three different occasions had periods of several hours where contractions settled into a pattern, even getting to 5-10 minutes apart, but then they would stop. So, we are cautious about determining when I am "really" in labor... but at 12 days overdue, we knew it had to be coming soon!
I had increasingly intense contractions about 10 minutes apart starting around 12:30 in the morning on Oct 14th, and they continued at that pace all day long. After Ginny's birth, I knew I could be in this stage for a LOOOONG time, so I slept as much as I could that night between contractions, and we had a pretty normal day around the house with mom & dad helping out with Ginny and food. I did have to go with Todd & Ginny to Urgent Care- turned out she had an ear infection- and it was kind of funny when I had to pause for a minute during a contraction, and the nurse asked if everything was okay, to tell the nurse that I was actually in labor. She was a little startled :) Once we got home, I napped in the afternoon again, trying to be as well rested as I could for whatever lay ahead.
Around dinnertime the contractions started to get more intense, and began to get closer together. Todd and I did lots of practice relaxing with our Bradley classes when I was pregnant with Ginny, and the contractions were tough enough at this point that I needed the cues to relax through them. From 7 to around 9 I had contractions about 7 minutes apart, and decided to call my midwife to give her a heads up that we might be waking her up that evening, but I knew I wasn't ready to head down to the birth center yet. While I was on the phone I had three contractions in a row at about 3 minutes apart, but I'd gotten similar clusters before, and then they would space out again. So, I got in the hot tub to soak and Todd got in too, but it quickly became apparent that the contractions were indeed settling into a much closer pattern and Todd figured we better get ready to head to Tacoma. So, while Todd got our bags packed and the car ready I stayed in the hot tub. Oh man, the warm water felt good, and made the contractions so much easier to manage (my water had not broken yet :).
Mom & Dad got Ginny settled for the night, while we drove on down through the rain to the Birthing Inn. We got there around 11 and I was 5 cm dilated and 60% effaced. I labored in the tub for the next couple of hours, and by 2 am I was 6 cm and 90% effaced. I was hoping to hear more progress, but tried not to get discouraged and got ready for a long night ahead of us. Then things got crazy. Contractions got extremely intense, and really close together, sometimes starting within seconds of the last one ending. The next hour and half were... primal.
Around 3:00 Dawn came in to check me again, and it took time to get moved back to the bed and to try to catch a break in the contractions to change positions. At 3:30 I announced that I needed to go to the bathroom NOW, and without even meaning to, I started pushing. Dawn took one look, grabbed gloves, and I knew the baby was on it's way out. She told me to trust my instincts and do what my body needed me to. I think I had about 3 waves of contractions that I pushed through, and then the baby was out. Later, Dawn told me I pushed for 8 minutes from start to finish... it was really fast. In fact, the last part of labor- from 6 cm all the way to baby-in-our-arms was only an hour and half. It was one tough hour and a half.
It turns out we stumbled into the world of superstition in Meredith's birth... she was actually born in an intact amniotic sac. It's really, really rare, but does happen sometimes. There are all sort of legends about babies born "in the veil" or "in the caul"- that they will be great leaders, or healers, or midwives, and will never drown. In fact, sailors used to carry pieces of the amniotic sacs of babies born in the caul as good luck tokens on sea voyages to keep them safe from drowning. It's been kind of fun to read all the legends now that we have a baby born in that club :)
One of the lovely things about delivering at the birth center is the time right after the baby is born- you get lots of time as a family right away, and other than a few basic checks on mom and baby, you get to just hold that newborn close. It was wonderful :)
Eventually we decided we were ready to have the midwives do the full exam and get all the statistics. She had a healthy birth weight of 7 lbs, 10 ounces and was 20 inches long, born at 3:38 am. Meredith nursed and when we were ready we drove on home to have our first day together as a family.
We've loved being home so fast, and it's been so fun to watch Ginny settle into her new role as a big sister! Life is good here :)
