Loving Elsie

Elsie was born on May 29th @ 5:06 a.m. She is lucky to share a birthday with my sister Jen and Brent's sister Erin. Three of our four share birthday's. Ayla is the only one to have the special day to herself.

My contractions started at quarter to one in the morning and were strong and 5 minutes apart. by 2 I woke Brent up and told him I thought it was the real thing because all of them were strong not just every other one or so like the other times I had contractions for hours just to have them stop. I am glad I trusted my instinct. We took the kids to Elmore's at 2:30 and were at the hospital by about 3. They did all the triage stuff and it was about 4:10 when the Dr. came in to give me my epidural. I had had to wait for a bag of IV fluid to be administered before he would come so once he was there and prepped and gave me the epidural it was about 4:35. My nurse checked me and I was at a 5, which is what I was at when admitted. Ugghh. I waited for the meds to kick in and it did on my right side but my left still felt awful. I really wanted it to work after all the stress of getting it(they make me so nervous). I asked my nurse how long it would take and if something was wrong. She said that he likes to start it off slow so that it works better and to give it 15 minutes, if it wasn't working by then she would have him come back in. So after about ten minutes of my pains getting stronger and stronger and me writhing in my bed, Brent told me to page her because he felt so helpless standing there asking me what he could do. She came in and checked me again and said that I was complete and then everyone started rushing around getting everything ready. My nurse said that because I had progressed so fast, literaly in a matter of minutes, that no amount of the drugs would be able to take all of the pain away and that it just hadn't had enough time. Well lets just say that that next 10 minutes or so was not the best in my life. I am so grateful that it went by quickly and that I only had to push through 2 contractions because I have never before felt like I wanted to leave my body. In fact I was actually trying to find a way out. Well so was the baby and she made it and then it was over.

The doctor layed her on my chest, which was the first time that a dr. has done that before they clean the baby up and I instantly fell in love. Moments later they were taking her away to do the apgar because her mouth was blueish around the lips and nose and she was breathing through her nose, flaring her nostrils. She really wouldn't cry no matter what they did to her. They sent her to get her blood oxygen levels tested and they kept monitoring them for the next few hours, and they rapidly improved so all was well.

She is a great baby. She eats, sleeps and poops, and already maintains a schedule of eating every 3 hours and she sleeps from about 11:30 to 5:30 or if I feed her at 9:30pm and then 1am she will go to 6:30 which is when her schedule starts over again. She is a great sleeper. Despite the monotony of her schedule it is amazing to me how fast and hard I fell in love with her. I love the way she smells, puts her little lips into an 0 shape, grabs my finger, curls up in a ball on my stomach, calms down right when I hold to my chest, lets me rub her feet without pulling them away, her skin feels, her deep blue eyes that seem to go straight to heaven, and I must admit that I love that she needs me and that I need her. I love that we are dependent on one another and the knowledge that I can fullfill all of her needs better than anyone else. I love that I am her mother.