One Month Ago

My baby is a month old today.  Whoa....  Now that time FLEW by.  Thankfully in some ways (especially the sleep department).  It's so fun to watch her grow every day and become more alert, understanding, etc.  Unfortunately it is so sad to see her outgrow some of the cute outfits that she wore right at first.  Then again, she never was a teeny tiny baby anyway.  Which, in a way, leads up to the topic of today.  Don't worry, it's long winded and full of details. ;)

Charlotte's Birth Story

If you aren't interested, scroll down to the bottom for the pictures.

Saturday morning, at 2 in the morning I might add, Charlotte decided to let me know that she was on her way to join in the craziness that is our family.  With contractions every 15 minutes, sleeping wasn't one of the easiest tasks, but luckily the pain wasn't too bad.  Blake had a phone interview at about 8 and a doctor's appointment at 8:30, so I figured I wanted him to be able to focus on them without being distracted, so although Mom was in on the secret, we didn't tell him till after he got back home.  However, I knew I wasn't going anywhere for a while, so not too much panic ensued. 

After a long day of trying to distract ourselves and make sure everything was ready, contractions got down to about every 4-6 minutes and we head to the hospital at about 9 pm.  They hooked me up to a monitor to see how Charlotte was dealing with the contractions.  I guess she thought it was a party as she kept on dancin and playin around inside.  They gave me a clicker for me to mark every time I felt her move, but shortly came back and told me that I shouldn't be pushing it so much.  Well, can I help it that she was moving that much?!  After what seemed like a good hour of this, they checked me and as I was only at 2-3cm, they had to send me home.  Awesome.  By this point there was a decent amount of pain, so they gave me a sleeping pill and a pain killer.  Talk about a trip!  I was definitely not able to walk on my own.  Weee.  

A couple hours later, again at about 2 am, we headed back to the hospital.  The midwife didn't want to check me in case she'd have to send me home again, so she just hooked up the laughing gas machine and left me to it.  Yup, you read right.  Laughing gas.  Not that it makes you laugh, but it does help make the time seem to go faster; which during a contraction is definitely a positive.  After another couple hours, she decided to check me and surprise, I was to 7-8.  She wouldn't have believed it from how I was acting, but I guess that's what comes from crappy periods....  

At 7 am, the midwives changed and the new one decided it was time to break my water as it hadn't yet.  After that the story changed.  I didn't want any pain relief other than the gas prior to that, but I jumped to a 10 almost immediately and it HURT!  Both Blake and I asked if there was anything I could have at that point, but she pushed back and said it wouldn't be long.  Definition of long when in labor must be different for the midwife than the woman with a baby!  However, it was true.  I started pushing at about 8:30 during which point you don't get any pain relief.  Shoot.  I even mentally stopped a few contractions because I didn't want to push *if you do this, the next one is just double the pain and length... dang it*.

Charlotte finally arrived at 9:18 am on Sunday morning.  A beautiful 8 lbs 8 oz, 20.5 in long, 14.5 in head, dark brown hair'd baby.  

After having her here in Australia with this healthcare system/type of care, I'm pretty interested to see how having a baby in the US will be different.  A few things that I found interesting that they do here are:

• The nurse was in scrubs, I was in a sexy hospital gown (not backless), but Blake was just in normal street clothes.
• It was just us, no doctors, and only a second midwife for about 1 minute to give me a shot to help with the afterbirth.
• Going natural is pushed pretty hard and you have to practically beg to be given an epidural.
• The baby is put straight onto mommy's stomach to try and breastfeed, then only wiped off when getting weighed.  No baths for at least 24 hours.
• You deliver in the birthing suite, then, after you shower and get dressed, you get moved to the maternity ward in a room with 4 beds.  (I was lucky as the others were all discharged from my room for the early evening till about midnight when another girl was brought in.)

After delivering such a ... healthy sized... baby all natural, I felt pretty good about myself.  Especially when I kept getting comments from the midwives about how I didn't look like I was dilated to a 10, or that I had just given birth, etc.  I'm one tough chick!  Now next time, GIVE ME AN EPIDURAL!!! :)  It was a good experience, but I don't think that I need to go through it again to help me bond more with my baby.

So there you have it folks.  And now we'll move on to the aforementioned pictures.  Hope you enjoy. :)

Really ready to have this baby!

The classic screaming while being weighed picture.

Such a loving new daddy.

Finally!  She can stretch out at home.

Posing before she's even 1 week!

1 week and first Halloween costume.

About 2 1/2 weeks old.

3 weeks

Today, staring out the window.  She loves doing that.  All 10.5 lbs of her. :)

Until next time.