How things went down
So here's the story of our little little Eleanor's birth (I apologize for the length): For a couple of weeks now, Elizabeth's been having contractions on and off. Typically they would occur late at night and would subside as soon as she laid down for the night so we knew they weren't serious. On Monday evening (the 5th), she began to have some weak contractions which she started timing around 6:30pm. Normally we would have overlooked these but they continued to grow stronger and closer together late into the evening. After we put Zeke to bed, we kept timing things and grew more suspicious.
Now, at this point in time, our mindsets were polar opposites. Elizabeth was thinking "I CAN'T have this baby on Zeke's birthday!" and was getting more and more worried. On the other hand, I was thinking that it would happen soon and was getting more and more excited about having the baby (which makes sense being that I wasn't the one actually having it). Elizabeth took a shower and laid down in bed to calm herself but all the while, the contractions kept coming so she wound up calling her mother at about 11:30pm. Her sister Hope left their house to stay the night just in case something exciting happened. I remember talking to Elizabeth and asking her what she thought and I think it was fairly obvious at that point the baby would be born soon. I was just nervous that Hope wouldn't arrive in time and we'd have to drag Zeke out of bed and make a frantic dash for the hospital. I took a shower and got dressed assuming we'd leave for the hospital as soon as Hope arrived. Everything was packed and ready to go so as soon as Hope arrived, I tried my best (unsuccessfully) to get Elizabeth out of the door and into the car as quickly as possible. After a few delays, we hit the road at around 12:15am.
The contractions were only 4 minutes apart at that point and were a lot more painful for Elizabeth so I drove as quickly as possible. Speed limits and rolling stops aside, I didn't break any traffic laws and we arrived at the hospital around 12:30am (ten minutes quicker than I've ever done that drive
before! and got settled into the birthing room around 1am. Elizabeth was 3cm dilated at that point and asked for an epidural. She tried to get one with Zeke, but things went so quickly that there wasn't enough time. Luckily, the anesthesiologist showed up around 2am and administered the very big needle. Not long after, it started to kick in and that when Elizabeth actually started to enjoy the birth process a little. She was actually smiling through some contractions and even laughed once which was interesting to watch. She was 7 cm dilated at 2:30am and had progressed to 9.5 cm by 2:55am. She started pushing at around 3:15am and our little Eleanor was born at 3:36am on January 6th (Zeke's birthday as well).The rest is sort of a blur, probably because we've long forgotten the concept of sleep. We came home from the hospital on Thursday around lunchtime and Zeke came
back home (Thanks for watching him Grammy!) later that evening. It's interesting to watch Zeke interact with baby Ellie. He was a bit disinterested at first but has warmed up to her quickly. I asked him if he loved Ellie and he said he did. I asked him if he would love her forever and ever and he replied "Yes! For never never!" so I'm hoping that he meant that in a good way. We're all doing fine and Eleanor is settling into her new Potter family membership nicely. I do wish she would sleep at night, but if that's her only flaw I'll gladly accept it. At some point, we'll need to figure out how to have two completely separate birthday parties on the same day without making one more spectacular than the other but I'm sure there'll be at least some sibling rivalry in the future regardless of what we do. If anyone has any ideas on how to handle that issue, please let us know.Anyways, that's the story.......
Posted in: on Sunday, January 11, 2009 at at 9:30 AM
Yay!! Congratulations! I am so excited for you guys and hopefully I will get to see her soon. I LOVE the name by the way!
Have fun
~~ The Webbs
Wow that is an incredible story!! My sister's birthday is the 13th and mine is the 14th of April, but I don't know how to handle the same birthday. What are the odds of that! Congrats! I like the shirt that says I got my good looks from Dad. Classic.
Congratulations guys! My advice on the two birthday thing is to just lie to them. Tell Ellie that she was born at 11:59pm...there's really no other solution. Good luck and we wish you guys the best!