Our first BABY! Ellie Rae

 It has been about three weeks since we had our baby and things have calmed down enough that we can write down our story.  As told by Michael. (However it has taken a while to find the camera cord to download the images so really its been nearly 10 weeks since Michael wrote this :)


June 8 3:00am
Amber who had been awake since 1am, woke me up with some deep breathing and really loud exhaling.  I got up and we timed the contractions for a while and had reached the magical 5 min or less for contractions.  We had some occurring every 3 min as well.  So we got everything we needed and headed for... my office.  Because that is where I had left our video camera.  Then off to the hospital.  We checked in and Amber got a ride in a wheelchair.  A very fast ride as the nurse had delivered a baby just weeks ago in the elevator.  We informed him that Amber's water had not broken so he slowed down. 

oh so fresh!

Once in the hospital room.  The nurse came and showed us all the different things we could do to help with contractions.  Sit in the bed, walk the halls, exercise ball, and most enjoyable a hot bath.  Contractions kept getting closer together and more intense.  (Michael was a great coach, constantly helping me breath through the contractions, I quote, "Deep breath, hold it....slowly exhale," over and over again, which at the end I really needed him to say to keep me focused and not just yell in pain :)




9am

Our little doll

Our doctor came in to check on our progress.  Amber was 7cm.  Some of you know what that means some don't.  I will explain briefly:  It means we are pretty close to having this baby.  The doctor predicted 2pm birth.  Which sounded great to us.  More contractions, more trips to the tub, some bouncing on the ball and 2pm came and went.  By then the doctor had checked and Amber was past 9cm.  But still not a lot of progress and her water had still not broken.

4:30pm  Not a lot of progress.  So we decided to have the doctor break Amber's water.  Then the real fun began.  Pretty quickly Amber had some serious contractions.  From my view I knew that these were a lot more intense than the others, Amber says they were 10 times harder.  Well this did the trick and after a number of these difficult contractions, the doctor confirmed that Amber was at 10cm, the baby was in the right position and it was time to push. 

Ready to go Home!

We are a little sketchy on how long Amber was pushing but we figure more than an hour for sure.  Contractions were coming super intense and often every two minutes like clockwork.  There are some details that I am omitting but this was the craziest thing I have ever seen.  After a long while of pushing, the doctor came in brought in a table of instruments, another nurse and we all knew it was close.... ask amber about the details here...( Thanks Michael, I will. AHHHHHHHHHHH!  After 45 min. passed I just kept asking the doctor between contractions how many more pushes at which he never answered but said as with Michael and the nurse "we can see the head".  Well so I decided I wanted to eat dinner and I was sick of pushing so with the next couple contractions I gave it my all.)  6:47pm Finally, one final intense contraction, Amber pushed 7 times in one contraction, Ellie Rae took her first breath and let us know with a cry.

Proud Daddy!

Happy Mommy

Two months later and she still lets us know with a cry.  Between growth spurts and bodily functions she is quite a vocal girl about her feelings.  She didn't sleep a whole lot during the day for about a month, but we are getting a little better at napping now.  The smiles and coos are the best!