Elsie's Birth Story

For everyone who loves labor stories like I do:

This was Sunday morning, in labor. Starting Thursday I had had terrible insomnia, taking 4 hours to fall asleep even though I was exhausted. I still didn't feel like labor was close though. Sunday morning I woke up at 3 a.m. wide-eyed. No contractions. I was very frustrated, but remembered at that point that the week before I had the boys, I also had suffered insomnia. Well maybe at least it was a good sign. At 5:00 a.m. I had a couple contractions with pain. I thought to myself, hmm, I'm not getting fooled this time. (A week before I had been up all night convinced I was in labor in a severe thunderstorm in a tent camping!) By 7:00 I thought maybe it was the real thing, so I did the tricks to tell; went on a long walk and took a hot shower. Both made the contractions worse. Betty, the boys, and Jason were up getting ready for church, and I didn't want to tell anyone, I just kept avoiding them for contractions. Finally about 9:00 I told Jason we probably weren't going to church. From then on I brought my ball chair up to my bedroom and labored by myself with headphones and fans on me. I would call Jason on the phone downstairs to bring me things, but I really wanted to be alone. At about 11:30 I needed Jason to be with me, but he was timing contractions and they were only 3-4 min apart. I was starting to lose control on some of them so I felt like I needed to go to the hospital, but was also expecting to be discouraged and only be at like 3cm. I threw up as we were leaving, and just walking into the hospital felt things getting far more intense. I remember the receptionist asking me dumb questions and I ignored her and let Jason answer. I leaned on the counter and told Jason I just wanted to stay there in the ER resting on the counter. :-) He wheeled me up to labor and delivery.

The nurse said I was at 7cm which was very encouraging. The next hour was the difficult transition, but I felt surprisingly calm. I told the nurse I thought it was time, and she went to get the doctor. As she walked back in the room, Elsie just came out. Panicked, the nurse flew to the gloves and pulled out a handful. The tech just pulled her sleeves over her hands and flung the surgical cloth off the instrument tray. The Dr. arrived and dashed over to the bed where he told me he hoped I wasn't HIV positive, as he cut the cord, etc. barehanded. Elsie was screaming and a beautiful little ball and I just couldn't stop telling Jason it was a girl! It was perfect! The cleanup took longer than anything else as they hadn't gotten all the right gear out!

We were extremely impressed with the hospital for the rest of our stay, talk about bells and whistles! A laptop for your use, jet tub in your room, a big snack room with 24 hours slushies, a celebration steak dinner with cheesecake and a rose, big brother buttons with Elsie's picture on them, "It's a girl" buttons with her footprint, a free photoshoot with multiple outfits and the CD of pictures. I tell ya, Saint Clare's hospital is the place to have a baby! We are all home and doing well. Everyone is in love, big-time. Here she is, August 15th, 2 days early, born at 1:24p.m. 7lbs 12 oz. 20 inches. Welcome to the Andersons, Elsie Joy!