Announcing Sophie's Arrival

Once again, this post is late in coming but here is the story of Sophie's birth...


Our Princess Sophie was born a little over two weeks ago. She weighed 8 lbs 8 oz and was 21 inches long. My labor and delivery went great. Sophie had a full head of dark hair and is the happiest and most adorable baby. I know Isaac and I could be biased, but we think she is the most beautiful baby in the whole world.

On the morning of Sophie's birth I was scheduled to be induced at 7am. But at 3:45 that morning I had my first labor contraction. I woke Isaac up and told him I thought I was in labor. (I had been worried that I wouldn't know when I was "in labor" and just kept waiting for the contractions to be "painful". I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions since about 16 weeks, so I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. My doctor kept reassuring me that I would know when it was the real thing, and he was right.) Anyway, Isaac was still mostly asleep and kind-of disregarded what I said. I had my second contraction 5 minutes later. Once again I told Isaac that I was having a contraction and that we should go to the hospital. Isaac tried to calm me down and wanted me to wait the full hour of contractions before going because it probably wasn't serious. I had another contraction and demanded that we go to the hospital NOW. So by the 4th contraction we had the car loaded up and were headed to the hospital.

Fortunately the hospital is only about 5 minutes away from our house, so we got to the hospital around 4:20am. The nurse checked me in the room and said I was dilated to 6cm. She then politely explained that she was going to step out to get some "extra hands". A few minutes later she came back with an army. She brought another 3-4 nurses and the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist began his "consent" talk about all the terrible things that can happen with an epidural, but at that point I was in so much pain that I didn't care what he was talking about and just wanted him to get on with it. The nurse checked me again 15 minutes later and I was dilated to 8cm. They then began the talk explaining that sometimes it is too late to get the epidural because it will take 20-30 minutes for the drugs to kick in and they didn't think I would last that long--they said that I would definitely be finished before my induction was supposed to start. Isaac thought that the nurses were exaggerating how quickly I would have this baby because no one has their first baby that quickly. We were packed and prepared to be in labor for 15-20 hours.

I decided to go ahead with the epidural. They gave me one quick dose to speed things up, and all I have to say is that drugs are wonderful. I am so glad that I was able to get the meds because I think it slowed down my labor enough for the doctor to actually arrive, the pain was totally gone, and I was able to just enjoy everything. The on-call doctor finally arrived and all the back-up residents were able to leave the room. (The only unfortunate thing about my labor was that my OB wasn't able to be there. He was going to be at the induction, but Sophie came just a few hours before his shift started.)

Because my epidural was so successful, I couldn't feel the contractions anymore so the nurse told me when to push. I pushed for about 40 minutes before Sophie was born. (When people talk about pushing, I always assumed it was more intense. I didn't realize that you only push for 30 seconds every couple minutes. I thought the whole thing was very pleasant and we had some really nice chats with the doctor and nurses while we waited. Isaac kept making fun of me because every time I pushed I would say, "Am I pushing? Because it just feels like I am holding my breath".)


Isaac and I were both shocked with the amount of dark hair Sophie had when she was born. The nurses cleaned her off and I cried when they handed her to me. (The hospital staff put a dorky hat on Sophie's head that made it look like she had rabbit ears. We removed that as soon as possible.)


Isaac was so excited to see his little girl. He was the best dad and stayed right by her side from the moment she came out, just like I asked him to.


St. Joseph's hospital is great. I have been really impressed with their doctors and nurses (at least in labor and delivery and the recovery areas). They also presented Isaac and I with a "Celebration Dinner" the evening Sophie was born. And they gave Sophie some great gifts before leaving the hospital.


This is a picture of Sophie and I after coming home from the hospital. (Don't worry, I'm not really asleep. I don't think you could take a picture of me asleep if you tried. In the six years that Isaac and I have been married, Isaac has seen me asleep less than 5 times.)


And this is a cute picture of our little princess. I will post more pictures of her soon. She is such a happy baby. She sleep smiles all the time. We love watching the range of facial expressions she goes through in the early stages of sleep. For the most part she only has two moods: happy and hungry. She turns into a ravenous little beasty when she is hungry, but once satisfied she is as happy as can be. We absolutely love having this little girl in our family.