She's here (and has been for awhile!)

Well, I suppose I should post that our little Sadie has finally arrived! (a couple of weeks ago)...


Sadie Althea Essenburg arrived via C-Section on Saturday, September 11 at 5:18am after 24 hours of labor. She was 9lbs 15oz, 22.5 in long and had a beautiful head of hair.

My water broke at 5am on Friday morning, so we scurried around the house to pack up the last minute items, took a shower, dropped some paperwork (and a leaf blower) off at Elliot's work, and returned a movie before arriving at the hospital shortly after 7am. Once we got settled in, they checked and I was dialated to about a 3.5/4ish and the nurse thought it would be a pretty quick delivery as my cervix was pretty soft and thin. I wasnt really feeling the contractions until about 11:30am and then finally at 1pm got my epidural. I was dialated to a 6 at that point. Well once I got the epidural then the contractions pretty much stopped - or slowed down very significantly.

They started administering the petocin which was working ok... my blood pressure was staying pretty steady and Sadie's heart rate was sticking in the middle of the range and doing good as well.

Slow and steady would be the best way to describe my labor from then on out... they would play around with the petocin levels and we just kept moving along... very slowly. Finally at midnight I was dialated to a 10, her head was in position, and they felt like we were good to push. Well except for the fact that my contractions were not strong enough or consistent enough yet. So we took a nap, and then at 2:30am finally started to push.

I pushed for about an hour and a half and there was no change in her positioning and her heart rate elevated to a steady 158/160 so the doctor came in and gave me the option of going with the C-Section or pushing for a little while longer to see if anything changed. (Little while meaning a half hour). Elliot and I talked it over and decided to go with the C-Section... and we're glad we did.

Once the meds were administered, Elliot was in scrubs, and I was wheeled down to the operating room things moved very fast and before I knew it I was hearing my baby cry for the first time. What an amazing feeling! The doctor said that there was no way she would have come out naturally so we would have ended up with the surgery... her head was stuck in the birthing canal and she was "sunny-side-up" as they put it, meaning she was facing up instead of down...

Elliot assumed the daddy role right away and was handed his daughter as soon as she was cleaned up and weighed... he brought her up to me so I could see her and I had an unbelieveable flood of emotions... I was faced with this stranger who had spent 9 months inside of me!!!

When we got into the room I am sort of embarassed to say that I had no desire to hold my new baby girl! I was content to just look at her in her daddy's arms... It wasnt until she was about 45-60 min old that I finally held her and fed her. But then I was in love. I didnt realise it until she was gone for her bath and we were trying to nap - and I woke up crying because she was gone... I was so happy when they brought her back and I just held her in my arms while Elliot slept. What a wonderful gift!

Looking back, I would not change a thing of how the delivery went... I had a bit of a hiccup with my hips (from my car accident) that I discovered once the meds wore off later that day... so now we know with the next child/delivery that we want to go with the C-section right away. Yet I was able to experience the excitement of my water breaking and the contractions and all of that with the normal delivery... so I can't say that I would change any of it one bit.

Now we are home, learning every day from each other... Sadie has already grown so much in the 2+ weeks we've been home with her... its just amazing! She has started to smile which is beautiful, she slept in her crib for the first time last night, she likes to sleep completely swaddled and in a sleep positioner on her side. She eats well for me - about every 3 hours and has taken a bottle all 3 times that I have tried it. I just need to get in a pumping routine and we will probably do a bottle a little more often.