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Birth announcement
A bit late for an announcement, but here it goes...
Welcoming Alexandra Reid, born on the 7th July. 8lbs 10oz (ouch!) at Capital Health Hospital in Hopewell.
I ended up being exactly a week overdue - went for a fluid ultrasound check at the hospital and when they decided it was too low I was admitted and induced.
It started off pretty easily and I was congratulating myself on how well I was dealing with the contractions, when they turned up the Pitocin another few levels and it started to really (really!) hurt. I asked for an epidural and got it.... and it didn't work at all.
Had a second epidural and went blissfully numb - even got a few hours sleep. When I woke up I discovered I could feel the contractions again and they were becoming increasingly painful. I was still numb on one side but could feel everything on the other.
Epidural. Umber 3 was no fun. I was in a lot of pain and he had to try several different sites and I had to sit perfectly still through a couple of pretty major contractions. Number 3 was also not particularly successful although it did take the edge off.
Alex was born after 19 hours of labor on Saturday at 10.30am.
She is the absolute spitting image of her Father and looks nothing like me at all!
I was really concerned about bonding with her, but that was no problem. I just love her to pieces. : )
Re: Birth announcement
Congratulations- and I love the name!
And I hear ya about her being the spitting image of her father- after hours and hours of horrific labor (I had epidural issues too) and an emergency c-section, I wound up with a daughter who looked like her father could have just made her all by himself. I almost cried.
Congrats. That's a big girl!
Sorry to hear about the rough labor. Try to process it - it helps you 'move on' from a difficult labor experience.
Also, don't feel bad about little Alexandra looking like her Daddy. My daughter looked like a mini version of the big guy for a long while. I'm convinced it's a biological thing that keeps daddies from eating their young b/c they know it's theirs! Of course, that's probably more for animals in the wild but it works for me!
Enjoy your time with your new special lady. Hope you're feeling good.
On the whole it was really great. There were a couple of annoyances, but it was the more minor stuff.
The rooms are awesome. So comfortable and big. If you labor overnight the recliner for DH isn't that great though - the pull out in the recovery room is much better. Tell Mr Ooodsie to bring a sweater and maybe bring a decent blanket for him. I was warm enough the whole time, but Mr Nobooze was cold and had to keep asking for extra blankets so he had a big mound of not quite big enough blankets heaped on the bed which wasn't very comfortable.
The nurses were all amazing - so nice and encouraging and helpful. I even loved the anesthesiologist despite my epi problems. He came to visit the next morning to make sure I didn't have some sort of spinal headache (?) from all the epidural issues.
I did feel like we had to wait a long time between check ups for the doctor because she was in surgery. It was annoying but what can you do - if rhere's an emergency, there's an emergency. You may not have that problem if you're going with the midwives. My now famous quote of the day was "someone needs to look in my vagina right now!" after some particularly painful contractions and not knowing if I was dilated enough for the epidural. Lol. It's funny how that works - I started off modest and ended up legs akimbo no longer giving a damn! ; )
I labored over a change in shift so had Dr Tasjen do the actual delivery. Loved her, she was totally awesome. I got really tired by the end and felt like I couldn't push any more, but the nurse, doctor and DH were so encouraging that it really helped push that last bit.
I guess the bit that needs work is the room service. The food is actually really good and I loved the room service aspect of it, but my tray took over an hour to come up for breakfast after delivery and having not eaten for almost 24 hours, that sucked. They brought Mr Nobooze's tray, but not mine and then he had to argue with them over what room we were in. They have instructions for each patient so they need to know what they're delivering to each room - but to bring one tray and then tell us we can't have the other because we're in the wrong room makes no sense and was annoying. I think that happened twice - once in our delivery room and once in recovery. Not a big deal, but irritating.
An anesthesiologist has to come and remove the epidural thing after birth and you can only have the drip taken out of your hand or arm 4 hours after the epi is removed. They were busy all day so I gave birth at 10.30am and didn't get the drip needle removed until 11pm. Also annoying because it kept catching on stuff.
The nurses were phenomenal with helping with breast feeding, but we did immediately request to see a lactation consultant on the morning of delivery and I guess they forgot about us because we didn't see anyone until the following day. The nurse was not happy we hadn't been seen and gave us lots of extra time though, so it was ok. I have to use those nipple shield things and i find them super fiddly to get on while trying to get the baby to latch. On the other hand when we finally did see the consultant she was amazing and helped enormously and a different LC came twice on our day of discharge to make sure we were all set to go.
I think I would give the hospital an 8.5 - 9 out of 10. It really is very shiny, new and state of the art. Great nurses, great doctors, amazing rooms, decent food ( if super slow), really nice staff everywhere, etc.
I liked the focus on keeping away from C sections unless totally necessary and all the support for breast feeding. I was dubious about the big push for immediate 'skin to skin' contact after the birth, but actually I feel like maybe it was a good thing. Even Mr Nobooze got in on it and I have the cutest picture of them cuddling up together.
I think you'll be fine there - it's kind of like checking into a hotel apart from the giving birth part! ; )
DS 3.12.08
DD 7.11.09
DD 8.01.13
#1 12.11.11
#2 10.23.13 EDD
Congrats! Lovely name.
I believe it IS actually a biological thing so that fathers know the kid is theirs. When they pulled Max out, DH yelled, "OMG he looks like me!"
Jonathan Dean 4.5.08
Anna Capri 5.4.11