Welcoming Ainsley

I want to introduce you to Ainsley Hope, born on Sunday December 27 at 2:21pm, weighing 7lb, 7oz.  She's here, she's healthy and we are all doing really well.  Her arrival didn't exactly go as planned, but that's okay now.  I went into the hospital the morning of Dec. 26 to get the induction started.  We expected to go home after getting the medication I needed to get my body ready for labour, and come back the next morning for the real induction.  Before leaving the hospital, though, I was told my fluid levels had dropped a bit, and the doctor wanted to keep me in hospital and on fairly continuous monitoring.  We settled in for what we expected to be a boring day & night of waiting around, strapped to a monitor.  Around 2pm I started to notice what I now realize were early contractions, and they kept coming stronger & stronger.  By evening they were coming every 2-3 minutes.  11pm is when they checked my progress, and we were surprised to hear that I wasn't even at 1cm yet, despite hours of regular & frequent contractions (it was the result of the medication, and it was indeed working to get me ready for labour).  I had planned to avoid morphine completely, but changed my mind at this point.  After hours of such contractions, I realized I needed to be able to get a bit of rest before doing labour for real the next morning.  While I was now able to have some rest in between contractions, the morphine didn't seem to ease the pain much at all.  This surprised the nurses, so I was checked again and had made it to 2cm in less than 2 hours.  Things were going to happen a little sooner than we thought!

Clem was by my side the whole time of course, and did a fantastic job helping me through it.  We stayed for a few more hours in the antepartum unit as labour progressed.  Being on monitors was certainly not what I wanted, but we made the best of it and tried to move around as much as possible.  Somewhere around 5am-ish (it's a little fuzzy at this point) we moved to labour & delivery, and things were certainly progressing well.  I decided to go for the epidural, particularly because I would be pretty much confined to bed from this point on due to the continuous monitoring.  By 7am Clem & I were both able to get a little rest thanks to the epidural, though neither of us were really able to get much sleep!  The epidural worked for a few hours, and then seemed to stop working for the last few hours.  Soon enough we were ready to push, and an hour & five minutes later Ainsley was here.  Here are couple of pictures from her first few minutes:

Ainsley & I had a good first night in hospital, and the next afternoon we were set to go home and all dressed up for the big event:

However, just as we were ready to leave, hospital discharge papers in hand, we found out that she had borderline jaundice and needed a blood test to see how bad it was.  So we waited for those results, and while she wasn't severe at all, we had to stay one more night while Ainsley goes under the lights for treatment.  This is her getting ready with her protective glasses, and then under the lights:

It was a LONG night.  Newborns want to be held, or at least wrapped up in blanket to feel secure.  When under the lights, Ainsley had to be in there, wearing nothing but a diaper, for the whole night (except for 30 minutes every 3 hours for feeding).  She doesn't cry that often, but in this situation with none of her usual comforts, she was pretty upset and I spent hours standing over her bed, reaching in and doing what little I could.  Thankfully, the light treatment worked and the next day we were able to bring her home for real.

 

We've had some good days at home now, and the three of us are all doing really well.  Lots of firsts, of course ... her first time meeting her Calgary grandparents and one of her uncles, first time with hiccups outside my belly (check out the video below) and her first poop outside a diaper (on her brand new hooded towel, exactly two seconds after her first bath at home).  We're really happy to sit & hold her and not do much else (including tonight, 2 hours before midnight on New Years Eve!), and just feel so thankful that she's here safely.