{Eleanor's Birth Story}

My water broke on Sunday, Dec 28 at 2:00am. I called the midwife and because I wasn't in labor we agreed I'd just stay home until later. We tried to go back to bed but were too excited to sleep. Finally around 6:00am contractions started- they were pretty close together and I was going to call the midwife, but then by 8:00am or so the contractions had about stopped or were 10-20 minutes apart. By then Tom had picked up Kathryn. Around 10:30am Kira (the midwife) called me to see what's up- she told me I should probably go to the hospital in about an hour or so. Tommy and I then went to Brueggers for a sandwich.

So we arrived at Methodist around noon- the baby looked great on the monitors. Because my water broke they don't do checks because of risk for infection so at 12:30pm they started pitocin. By about 2:00pm the contractions were finally getting more intense. Kira checked me at 2:30pm and I was only at a 4. This was heartbreaking because with Kathryn I was at a 5 when I had arrived at the hospital- so to us that sounded like 12 more hours of labor ahead! Kira said she'd check me again in an hour.

At about 2:45pm- I asked about pain relief- sterile water hadn't worked with Kathryn and epidurals just slow things down and I had no desire to be stuck in the bed. At 3:00pm I had a small dose of fentanyl. My contraction were about 1-2 minutes apart and the fentanyl didn't effect the intensity of the contraction but instead made the rest time very pleasant- so you worked though it knowing the in-between time would be relaxing.

Then at 3:15pm I announced that I was ready to push- Kira said push. She checked me and I was at a 9-10. Suddenly there was a flurry of people running in- trying to set everything up in time. It was kind of hectic in the room for a couple of minutes. I kept pushing and at 3:33pm Eleanor arrived!!!

I couldn't be happier about how fast it ended up being, how great the midwife and the nurses were, and what a fantastic birth partner Tommy was during it all!

Eleanor Marie
12/28/08
3:33pm
7lbs, 13oz
20 1/2 in long