It's a Girl!

We would like to announce the birth of Jacqueline Marie Hill!

Born at: 4:02am March 12, 07
Weight: 7 pounds 1 ounce
Length: 19 ¼ inches

The labor / delivery story:

Sunday afternoon we took Brutis for a walk to Starbucks – after hanging out for a while in the gorgeous Calgary sun, we headed to Sobeys to get some groceries for dinner (burgers – later to be discovered – not a good meal just before going into labor). While Adam waited outside with the dog – I was inside shopping and got my first contraction – very mild – barely noticeable. Then we headed home, made dinner, had dinner and set up to watch a movie – all this time I was having very mild contractions – but I choose not to tell my dear husband since I know how he would react and did not want him to worry / stress just in case this was nothing. At the start of the movie (7:00 ish) the contractions were 15 minutes apart and just starting to get worse – so I told Adam what was going on – he reacted as I expected – but I insisted on us watching the movie for as long as possible to keep my mind off the pain. All my contractions were very short, but very much in the back – but after about 45 minutes into the movie – we are at 5 minutes apart, increasing in intensity, but still less than a minute each. So we called the hospital and they suggested we come in for an assessment.

Well, all the gear was ready, so into the truck and off to Rockyview Hospital. We arrived at 9:00pm – they hooked me up to monitor the contractions – still about the same distance apart, 4-5 minutes – but much worse. After ½ hour, I was checked and at 5 cm dilated, so they admitted me. We lucked out – it was a relatively slow evening in the hospital and we got a room right away.

So we started out in the shower – that lasted for a while – but I asked for some medication – laughing gas – it worked well for a little while, but as the contractions increased in intensity it really did not seem to be doing much – so I asked for the epidural (although I had said I wanted to go epidural free – I also said if I am having back labor – bring it on). Well the epidural was amazing – as we road out the rest of the contractions to full dilatation – Adam was able to take a nap and I was able to rest. At this point in time I was SOOOO tired (I had missed my 9:00pm bed time by hours).

Once the nurse did another check – we were ready to start pushing – so I pushed once on the next contraction – but she quickly told me to stop – they could see head, but we did not have the doctor in the room. A few minutes later the doctor arrived and we started pushing – 15 minutes later – Jacqueline was born.

All in all it was not a horrible experience – yes I would like to avoid going through that and time in the next year – but it was not bad enough to make me say never again.

I will post in a day or two and let you all know how we are doing at home.

Now for the pictures...