Our little girl is here! Arie Kait Webb joined our family two weeks ago, on October 3rd. She weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 19 inches long. She has dark hair and eyes that are dark blue--for now. I think they will end up being brown. She is absolutely beautiful and so sweet.
Before I get to her story, I need to back up a bit to when Damon was born. I wasn't super happy with my labor and delivery experience. I went in to be induced after going to a doctor's appointment. So it was already kind of late in the morning. They didn't get everything started right away. Once they did, I was in the hospital bed and stayed there until a few hours after Damon was born. I felt like I was sitting around, bored and uncomfortable, just waiting for the baby to come. Then, for some reason, my epidural felt like it stopped working on my right side. It was like this for about the last 40 minutes before Damon was born. Then, right after he was born, they gave him to me for a few minutes and then they took him over to the warmer where they proceeded to do all their "stuff." Damon was quite unhappy about this. He screamed and screamed while his startle reflex was going crazy. The nurse wasn't even there with him, but was a few feet away doing whatever protocol required. I couldn't stand it that he was just over there all alone, screaming, right after being born. I finally got up the nerve to ask one of the nurses if it would be alright for Nate to go over to him. I think it was somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour after Damon was born that they brought him back to me so I could hold and feed him. And he was perfectly healthy, with no problems. I was upset by this at the time, but over time, the thought of this has made me even more mad. I spend nine months making this baby and then the first thing they do after he is born is take him away and put him in a plastic bin where he flails and screams. Not okay.
SO... this time around was going to be different. I did a lot of research about labor and delivery. I was a bit annoyed by the "medical-ness" of the whole process. Having a baby is a normal, natural process. But hospitals specialize in the treatment of sick people. And it seemed like that clinical setting was seeping too much into childbirth, with excess poking and prodding and baby taking. So I started to find out about midwives and natural birth. I read a hypnobirthing book, which was really interresting. I don't think I was ever really going to go that whole route, but I wanted to learn about it. Ultimately, what I decided was that I would love to have my baby with the help of a midwife at the birthing center in town... with an epidural. However, epidurals aren't an option at the birth center. But I would have loved the non-hospital atmosphere there where they let you have your baby and leave you alone.
I decided on the hospital and epidural. But I wanted things to go more my way--meaning I was going to speak up more about what I wanted. I didn't want to be induced. I have done it both ways, but in comparing Kelton's birth (spontaneous) to Damon's (induced), I prefered spontaneous. Mostly because it put me in the hospital bed for less time. However, I didn't want to go over my due date. But Kelton was two weeks early and the others were induced a week early. I really didn't think I would make it to my due date. But I was wrong. My due date was the 2nd and the Dr's office scheduled an induction for the 3rd. When she hadn't come on her own by my due date, we decided to just go ahead with the induction. I was okay with this for a few reasons. My labor and deliveries are pretty quick. I was a little worried with this being baby number five, about not making it to the hospital 40 minutes away with Nate first needing to get home from work 30 mintues away. Also, I was Group B Strep positive (for the first time ever) and would need four hours to get the antibiotics in to protect the baby. When I had Kelton, he was born less than three hours after we got to the hospital. So I figured that all around, maybe and induction would be the safest bet anyway.
For the first time ever, I remembered to get a picture before heading to the hospital.
So on the morning of October 3rd, Nate and I headed to the hospital. We were supposed to get there at 7:30 but ended up being half an hour late. My nurse's name was Genevieve. She is about the same age as Nate. She ended up being the greatest nurse, once I was able to get over her calling me "buddy" or "bud" all the time. She made my hospital experience more of what it should be. She did little things that made a difference without me even asking her to, like taking off the blood pressure cuff instead of leaving it on all day long. This meant more work for her because she had to remember to come and put it back on every 20 minutes. She also hooked the monitors up to a portable unit so I could walk around the hospital, which she had me do for the first little while that we were there. She also brought in a birthing ball for me to sit on. With all the babies I've had at this hospital, I've never even seen a birthing ball there, so I am thinking this must be a new addition. It was so nice to be able to walk around and sit on the ball. I didn't even get in that stupid bed until I was ready for my epidural.
When my nurse checked me after arriving at the hospital, I was 5 cm. My first thought was, "good heavens, how has this baby not come on her own?" I'm thinking that maybe there really was a reason I was supposed to be induced. Around 8:30 I got my first dose of antibiotics. Then we took care of all the fun paperwork stuff. The pitocin got started around 10:30. Like with every baby before, I like to feel the contractions. I could get an epidural as soon as I walk in, but that just seems like cheating. So I work through the contractions until I've decided that I've had enough. When I got to 7 cm I was ready for the epidural. I had a really good anethesiologist and he did a great job. I got the epidural sometime around noon or a little after...I'm not quite sure. But I didn't have it for very long before Arie was born, which was nice.
Just about the time my nurse was thinking we should call and alert my doctor, the patient next door to me ended up getting rushed into an emergency c-section to save her baby. She was also a patient of my doctor. My nurse started to get a little worried because I was close to delivering and Dr. Dunn would be in surgery for the next 40 minutes. She was the only OB anywhere on the floor. The nurse turned off the pitocin and we waited. Fortunately, it turned out okay. But I just realized that if we would have been on time to the hospital instead of a half hour late, we would have needed the doctor at the same time.
As we were waiting for Dr. Dunn, Nate needed to go to the bathroom, but he didn't want to use the one in the room because it was all set up for me. So he headed out to find one in the hospital. On his way out he jokingly said, "I'll be right back. Don't have a baby without me." A couple of minutes after he left, my nurse came in the check me. She determined that I was at 10 cm and the baby was ready to come. A couple of minutes later, Dr. Dunn got to my room. We were all ready to for Arie to come, except Nate still wasn't back from the bathroom yet. So we all waited a few more minutes for Nate to get back. I just thought it was funny that we really could have had the baby while he was gone. And I think he was a bit surprised to see that we were all ready to go and were just waiting for him. I pushed about two times and then Dr. Dunn said, "This baby is going to deliver herself." And she was. But I gave just the tiniest of pushes to help her along and out she came. She was born at 2:11 p.m., just a little more than three and a half hours after my labor was started.
Genevieve was such a great nurse that I didn't really have to ask a lot of her to make my experience better than before. But the one thing I did request was that I wanted Arie given right to me, skin to skin and I didn't want her taken away. Genevieve knew exactly what I was asking for and said, sure they could do that and then do everything they needed to do with Arie right there on me. And that is exactly what they did. They only took her for a minute to get her weight. Other than that, I had her with me from right after she was born. I loved this. I wish I would have know to insist on this with all my other babies. Arie nursed better than my other babies and Genevieve said she thinks it is because of the immediate skin to skin contact. She said she is a big believer in that. I think I just got really lucky with the nurse I was assigned because I don't think they are all so willing to do that because it is harder for them to work around.
Because I was positive for the Group B Strep, I, or rather Arie, had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours after the birth. I was not happy when I found this out a month or two ago. But, it ended up not being so bad. The nurse I had for the first day after Arie was born was great. Usually I don't really like the post delivery nurses because they tend to not really care about you because you've already had your baby and you are not real fun anymore. But this nurse was so nice and I could tell that she really cared. Also, my hospital food was actually really, really good. So that made my stay more enjoyable too.
Arie and me right before going home.
My mom and dad were at our house with Natalie, Kelton, and Damon and they all came to see Arie right as we got moved from the labor and delivery room to the recovery room. They were all so excited to see and hold Arie. Kelton was so excited he didn't quite know what to do. Every time he holds her, his face completely lights up and he just stares and smiles at her. It is so sweet. Sadly, Kelton got a really bad cough about the time we came home from the hospital, so he wasn't able to hold her or be around her much for the first few days we were home.
Here are a few other bits of information:
Arie's middle name, Kait, is in memory/honor of her sister Kaitlin.
After four other children, Arie is the first one to have the same blood type as me, O positive. (All the other kids are O negative.)
Arie is the only one of my kids who didn't have to be monitored/rechecked for jaundice.
I would say that after almost 8 years I've forgotten how fun baby girl clothes are, but really, I haven't.
We already have almost 200 pictures of Arie. She's just so cute, I can't stop!
