Elyse is here!

Elyse Grace Waters decided to make her entrance into the world on the one day we hoped she wouldn't come. The girls have been taking ballet and acro classes all year long, and their recital was on June 16th. They could hardly wait- especially Avery. It was going to be her first recital and she was excited to wear her costume, lipstick, and get her very own bouquet of flowers. Bailey had a solo in her ballet routine and we were all looking forward to that day.

However, Elyse had other ideas. Early in the morning on June 16th, my water broke.

I had just gotten back from my millionth trip to the bathroom, laid down, and felt a little gush. I laid there, thinking that it couldn't possibly be what I thought it was. I decided to ignore it. But really, you can't ignore something like that. After a few minutes I went back to the bathroom, and sure enough, my water had broken.

I went to wake Mike up, but he was in deep, deep sleep. In the process of waking up, he did something to his eyes and they were bright red and pouring water. I told him my water broke, and in his stupor asked, "Do you think we should go in?"

A telephone call later, we were packing up recital outfits, dance shoes, and clothes for the girls. Luckily, one of the dance moms was on our middle-of-the-night call list. We dropped them off, bright eyed and bushy tailed, hoping they would go back to sleep. Then we headed off to the Birth Place. Mike's eyes were still miserable and I was beginning to think I would have to drive myself.

During all of the get-to-the-hospital craziness, I kept waiting for real contractions to start. With Bailey and Avery, as soon as my water had broken, they were here. I was really surprised and secretly hoping that maybe what I thought were Braxton-Hicks were the real thing.

We got to the hospital and they hooked me up to the monitor. No contractions. They checked me and I was at 3 cm., a whole entire 1 cm. more that I had been earlier in the week. They sent me to the birth place and we waited for labor to really start.

Mike and I walked laps around the floor, I took several hot showers, bounced around on the birthing ball, and tried to take a nap. Still, no contractions. Eight hours after my water broke they checked me again. Still only 3 cm.

Because labor hadn't started yet, Mike was able to sneak away and go see Avery dance in the recital. I was really sad I couldn't go, but happy that at least one of us got see her dance.

Our doctor, luckily, said I could wait until lunchtime and see if contractions would start. While Mike was gone, I tried taking yet another shower, yet another nap, and more bouncing. Three more hours passed, and still no contractions and no progress. I was really disappointed. Things were not going how I wanted. I had to miss Avery's recital and I could see my natural unmedicated birth going down the drain.

At 1:30pm, twelve hours after my water broke, we started pitocin. Because we were delivering at the Birth Place, most doctors would have transferred me over to Labor and Delivery. We were lucky though- the doctor on call was really relaxed and let me stay at the Birth Place. I did, however, have to be continuously monitored which meant I was stuck to the bed. That meant I couldn't use the jacuzzi tub when things started to get bad- I was really looking forward to that tub! I was also really nervous about pitocin and terrible contractions and being stuck in bed.

After the pitocin started, contractions finally started. For the first two and half hours, they were bad, but not terrible. All that changed at four o'clock. I could tell that I was hitting transition. I was feeling a little sick, and more than a little shaky. Sure enough, I was at 7 cm. I'm not going to lie- contractions were really terrible. I kept telling myself that transition is the shortest part of labor, and that I could handle anything for a while. The nurse who was there was fantastic- I was miserable and my tail bone was killing me. There was no way I could just lie there in bed. She held the monitor that tracked the baby's heartbeat to my stomach while I moved around, trying to get through the contractions.

After an hour, I felt a little pushy. They checked me again, but I was only at 8 cm. At that point I was really miserable. I had just been through an hour of terrible pain and only progressed 1 cm. I still had 2 to go! I knew I couldn't handle two more hours of these contractions- they were one on top of the other at that point, with no breaks in between. I asked for a shot of nubain.

At 5:30 pm I got the nubain, and instantly felt like it was time to push. The nubain took the worst edge of the pain off, and I really was grateful for that, even though it made the room spin. They checked me and I was a at a ten. One huge push later and Elyse was here. She was 7 lb. 3 oz. and 20 1/2 in. long. The perfect size.

The Birth Place was fantastic. After Elyse was born, they put her right on my chest. We were able to be with her before they did anything. They waited until Mike brought Bailey and Avery to the hospital and they were able to help give her her first bath.

The girls are totally in love with Elyse- we all are. She is a sweet baby and has been so good so far.

We are thrilled she is part of our family!