Evie's Birthday

Now that things have settled down a little bit and I have a few minutes, I'll recap the story of how baby Evie came into the world, and how her first day went.

I dropped Rhiana off at work around 5:30 on Friday, then came home and got ready for work myself. I got to work around 7:45 and started running through e-mails, getting a drink and getting settled in for the day, when the phone rang around 8:15. It was Rhiana - "Guess what? I broke my water this morning!". That was funny, because after the first "practice run" we had the week before, Rhiana said she was jealous of all the women who break their water so they can just get admitted and get the labor jump-started, instead of going home and waiting.

So I grabbed all my stuff from the office, told everyone I'd see them in a week or so, and took off. I picked up my Mom and Rhiana's Mom at home and we all headed to the hospital. Rhiana was already admitted and in the L&D room and everything was set up. Fortunately, her favorite nurse, Betsy, was working that day and would take wonderful care of us all for the entire day.

Things were progressing rather slowly between 9 am and 1 pm, but it was still nice to sit and chat amongst ourselves. Rhiana's doctor, Sarah, checked her at 1 and said she was still at 2 cm, so we figured it would be a few hours of waiting for things to happen. I went down to the store and bought some movies to watch in the room, and some snacks for the day. Around that time, Rhiana's contractions were starting to cause some pretty serious discomfort, so the nurse anesthetist went ahead and started her epidural. That really took the edge off, and was really the key to a wonderful delivery experience.

Anyway, things remained fairly calm and uneventful until just before 3, when Rhiana started to feel some sharp pain in her lower back with each contraction. Since that is typically a sign that the baby is moving downward, Betsy went ahead and checked her again. When Betsy looked up and said, "Ready to have a baby?", we were all shocked that the labor was that quick - Rhiana's eyes were as big as I've ever seen them. In fact, I had just put in a movie to watch while we were anticipating some more waiting. We still haven't seen that movie.

We paged Sarah, and did a test push while we waited for her to come up from the clinic. After that single test push, Betsy said not to push anymore, because that one push moved the baby down very well. While we waited for Sarah, the nurse anesthetist gave Rhiana a bolus in her epidural to cover the pain of delivery.

Sarah came running up, out of breath, because her page had said "Room 4 is delivering", and she was afraid she was missing it. We all had a good laugh, and got things ready to go. Rhiana began three really good pushes with each contraction, with Betsy holding her right leg and counting, and her Mom holding her left leg. I stayed by Rhiana, held her back and shoulders and did my best to offer encouragement the entire time. My Mom was on camera duty, and roamed around the room to get the whole thing on tape.

Words simply can't describe the things I was part of for just under the next hour. I will just say that Rhiana is absolutely amazing. She gave three great pushes with each contraction, about one contraction per minute, and only sat out once the entire time. The entire team was great: Sarah was great in explaining any questions we had, Betsy guided everyone through the day, Rhiana's Mom gave excellent support to Rhiana, and my Mom captured everything we wanted, while being able to be part of it at the same time.

At 4:06 pm, Evelynn Rosemary came into the world with a strong cry, I cut the umbilical cord, and she came straight to her Mom's chest. After a few special minutes, she weighed in at 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 19.5 inches tall. She passed her first checkup with flying colors, and was immediately the pride and joy of everyone in the room (well, for her Mom and me, anyway). The rest of the day was spent getting to know each other, learning how to feed her (and help feed her). After a few hours to check on baby and Mom, we moved to a more permanent room to spend the next couple of days recuperating.

We called immediate family and shared the news and the story with them. Then the new grandmothers gave Evie a kiss and left to go back home for the evening, exhausted and looking forward to baths. Rhiana and I also grabbed ourselves some well-earned rest, though at much shorter intervals.

Getting Evie to feed properly was a bit difficult at first, and remained so for a the next couple of days. But it worked well enough, and quite surprisingly, she slept fairly well the first night. She woke a few times, but we were able to get sleep in 2-3 hour increments. Man, that was nice.








More to follow as we get time to post more. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Evie with Sarah, Betsy, and her grandmas, and the sign that my parents had made for us, just like the ones they put up for my bother and me when we were born. Thanks, Mom & Dad.

The cutest little girl in town.