Welcoming Alaina Marie Nielson!!

OK, so here's the baby story:

Jill woke up on Wednesday morning at about 6:45 a.m. and realized that her water had broken. She called the advice nurse before waking me up, but it didn't take us long after that to get Lizzie packed, finish packing our own bag and get into the car. We dropped Lizzie off at Wendy's house (her daughter, Jordan, and Lizzie are in the same kindergarten class this year) and headed to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, the nurse from Jill's OB/GYN clinic suggested we turn around and get checked out at the clinic in Springfield, just to be sure Jill's water had actually broken. We respectfully declined the suggestion and kept heading to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, we spent a significant amount of time in the Labor and Delivery Triage area before they had a room ready for us. Unfortunately, that also meant that Jill couldn't get the epidural started until then either. Even once we got to the labor and delivery room, it took some time, and Jill had a very uncomfortable couple of hours. Thankfully Jill finally got the epidural, and things were mostly smooth sailing after that. Below is a video of Jill, post-epidural.



Once Jill was feeling a little more comfortable, we both were able to take a couple brief cat naps, and I sent a couple text updates to some family members. Since Jill had taken one of her anti-contraction pills the night before, we thought there was a chance that they might need to give her pitocin to stimulate contractions. Fortunately no pitocin was necessary; Jill's contractions continued to increase in strength and frequency, and labor progressed naturally. At about 3 p.m., the doctor had Jill start pushing, and at 3:18 Alaina Marie Nielson was born.

We did have a bit of a scary moment, unfortunately - the cord was wrapped around Alaina's neck, and apparently fairly tightly. Fortunately, the doctor was able to slip the cord over Alaina's head, and she didn't seem to have gone without blood or oxygen. She did have to be stimulated fairly vigorously before she really responded, but she started breathing, and Jill and I started breathing again too.

Since Alaina is technically premature (at 36 weeks and 5 days) the hospital had NICU nurses attend in order to assess the baby's health. Thankfully, they were quickly able to determine that Alaina was well developed and healthy, and there was no need for her to take a trip to the NICU. The nurses finished up all the measuring and testing, and soon enough, we were able to hold and kiss our new baby.

Here are a few pictures of the new baby:


I spent the night at the hospital last night with Jill while Lizzie stayed the night at Wendy's (thanks again Wendy!). By the time evening rolled around, we were all pretty tired. We tried to get some sleep with the baby in the room, but Jill's paranoia wouldn't allow her to sleep for more than a minute or two without checking to make sure that Alaina was still breathing. So we had the nurses take Alaina to the nursery where we could be sure that she would have the constant attention of one of the nurses.

Jill was able to begin breastfeeding soon after Alaina was born, and she continued every few hours through the night. Of course, Alaina is so sleepy that she has tended to fall asleep soon after she begins nursing. So far, that has been the routine - a little bit of nursing, and a lot of sleeping for Alaina.

I left Jill and Alaina mid morning today to get a few things ready at home. That took me a little longer that I thought it would, so I didn't get back to them until this evening when I brought Lizzie to see her new baby sister. Liz was very excited to see Alaina. I think it might have helped that we bought her a new Ponyville set (a la My Little Pony) as a new big sister gift, but I think she still would have been excited. I absolutely loved seeing my three girls together tonight. What a beautiful sight!