Elizabeth's Birth Story

Elizabeth Ann Salomon was born on her due date, March 26, 2011 at 3:24pm.  Here is her birth story, if you are squeamish you should probably just scroll though the pictures:

At 2:30 in the morning Jason started fussing so I got up to settle him and felt a small gush of water.  After that nothing happened so I went back to bed and waited until morning.  When I got up around 5am it happened again and Jeff made the executive decision that we needed to go get checked out at the hospital.  I was unsure because this was nothing like the definite water breaking that I had with Jason, but went along with Jeff's plan.  We arrived at the hospital around 7am.  The nurse, Heather, got me all set up in a room, ran a test to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid and asked all the usual questions.  She checked my cervix and I was 3 cm dilated and she said that she still felt a bag over the baby's head.  The Doctor headed in a little later and did a different test to see if I was leaking fluid, but said she did not feel the bag over the baby's head.  I was finally admitted by the Doctor at 10:30 and they started an IV and Pitocin to augment the small contractions I was having.

I could feel the contractions pick up and by 12:30 I was ready to talk about an epidural.  The nurse said that the anesthesiologist was just headed into surgery, but when he was out I would be first in line.  He finally was able to come in about 2pm, but had a lot of trouble getting the epidural in the right place.  He finally found the spot and I was feeling relief by 2:30.  Shortly after he left I realized I was still feeling pain low in my right side and then it spread more to my back.  In trying to find a more comfortable position I knocked the baby's heart rate monitor off so another nurse came in to help adjust it.  I told her about the pain and at this point my body was shaking and asked if this was normal.  She asked how long ago my cervix had been checked and I told her it had not since I was admitted.  She checked me and as she had guessed I was fully dilated, but she still felt the bag over the baby's head.


 Things started moving really fast at this point nurses rushed in to prepare the room and they called the Doctor.  The Doctor checked in and was telling me about what was going to happen and just checking in when I had to interrupt her to say that something was going on and I needed to be checked.  At about that time I gave birth to...a water balloon.  It seems that my water had sprung a high leak, but much of the bag was still intact so as my body was pushing it pushed out the bag of water and any remaining amniotic fluid.  The doctor called all the nurses over to take a look at this unusual sight and I was reminded to ask for a mirror so that I could watch the birth.  The bag was broken and in just one contraction with a push for her head and a push for her body, Elizabeth was born at 3:24pm.  It all happened so fast I almost didn't believe it was real.  She was 6 pounds 4 ounces and 19.25 inches long.  She had some fluid in her stomach (probably from being in the sac for so late into labor) but it was cleared out within an hour of her birth. 





 We are all in love with our beautiful baby girl!

Waiting game

Waiting for baby girl is kind of like waiting for Christmas, but worse.  You know it is coming, but unlike Christmas you don't know when.  At the last Doctor appointment on Monday she said she thought that we would be in labor and delivery this weekend.  The weekend is almost over and there is no sign of baby girl.  Then again before my water broke with Jason there was no sign of him either, so who knows.  Before Jason was born I felt like I was going to have to wait around for him, but he surprised us and came right on time.  This time I felt like baby girl was going to come early, but I may be wrong again.  Only God knows when baby girl will make her appearance, but I keep praying it will be sooner rather than later.

In the mean time we have been spending time with visiting family.  Jeff's parents and brother, Michael, came to visit us this week and we tried to keep them entertained in our small town.  We went to White Springs Missile Range and White Springs National park.  Another day we spent in Las Cruces going to the small railroad museum and La Mesilla, a small town where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced.  Dad and Michael did go out to Silver City and the Gila River Cliff dwellings, but I was concerned that the drive was too bumpy and it would be too far to travel from the hospital so Mom and I stayed home.

Jason has really enjoyed having Uncle Michael around to play with.  He was slow to warm up to everyone, but now is happy to cuddle and give hugs to Grandma and Grandpa.  It doesn't hurt that they take him out to play and read books to him.  Dad and Michael had to return home early this morning, but we are keeping Mom around to watch Jason when Jeff and I have to go to the hospital.  I don't think she minds getting to see a newborn baby girl either.

In other news, we do have a contract in on a house in Tucson.  Of course things could go wrong, but we agreed with the bank on a price.  We are still working out the closing and when we would move, but are hoping we can move things along quickly!

Life update

Nope, no baby girl yet, but we are full term at this point so there should be no problem if she is born now.  I'm not feeling super anxious about her coming just yet, but wait two weeks and that might change.  I finally got Jeff to put together the nursery so baby girl has a place to be.  We set up her big toys so that Jason can get used to them being there and can play with them before she arrives.  I would really like her to wait until after Jeff's parents get here on Saturday so Jason can spend time with someone he knows pretty well.

Speaking of Jason, the poor guy has been going through a couple of sick days recently.  I won't go into all the yucky poopy details, but we keep hoping that our little guy is on the mend!  He is still trying to communicate telepathically, but we just won't catch on.  We are excited by each new sound he makes and I keep meaning to get a video of his babbling because I am sure we will miss it when he breaks out in full on sentences.  He has quite a mind of his own and will let you know when you aren't doing things the right way.


 

In other news we have looked at more and more houses in Tucson and keep coming back to that second choice one I talked about in the last post.  We might be finalizing a deal on it soon and then the hard work starts.  I'm a little nervous about packing the whole house up and moving it ourselves with a 2 year old and a newborn.  Good thing we have so many slaves, uh I mean family and friends coming to visit the baby.  Be forewarned, if you come and visit you might have to pack a few (or a ton of) boxes and/or do some heavy lifting before you hold baby girl.

Housing update

So as promised I will give you an update on our housing situation.  Jeff, Jason and I looked at houses all last weekend and decided to put an offer in on a house on Monday.  It was a really nice house with a beautiful backyard.  It had a pool and a grill and a grassy area for Jason and Elizabeth to play.  It's kitchen is a little closed in and the master closet is awful, but it is a beautiful house.  It had a dry bar with a wine cooler and kegorater that Jeff and I would probably love if we drank more.  It is also in a pretty nice neighborhood with great schools.  It was priced at $330,000 and we offered $287,000.  We know it was a bit low, but we didn't want to overpay for it.  We prayed a lot and found out that although the house had been on the market for 2 years they suddenly got another offer right as ours came in.  We were given the option to up our offer and did offer $295,000.  We found out this morning that we lost the house, but we had kind of figured that when we had not heard a lot.  It's okay and we know that we will find the right house for us.

We are debating on making an offer on our second choice house.  It is priced much lower, but it isn't in as good of a school system.  The back yard has a pool, but is really nothing to get excited about.  The issue is that it is a nice house, but nothing about it screams GREAT!  We will have to see.

Good things to come

I know I have been awful about keeping up on here lately, but I will try to be better in the upcoming weeks.  As I wrote about on Saturday we had a wonderful time as a family on Jason's birthday. 

We hope everyone had a great Valentine's day and we were so lucky to get to spend the day together as a family.  And we even got a peek at our littlest member.  The doctors were concerned that baby girl was measuring a little big so we got a bonus ultrasound and got to see her chubby cheeks.  After the tech looked at everything it she determined that baby was measuring right on track at about 5 lbs and she is in the 40% for weight.  It also looks like she has hair already and I keep envisioning her looking just like Jason when he was a newborn.  I'm so excited to meet her, but we will have to wait 35 more days, give or take a week or so.

The other exciting thing going on in our life is that Jeff just got the okay for us to move to Tucson!  I know what you are thinking, ya Rachel you guys move more often than some people change their underwear, but this time it may be for the long term.  We are actually looking at buying a house!!!  In fact, we have been to Tucson twice already to look at houses and we are going again tomorrow.  We are trying to keep our emotions neutral, but it has really been a battle for Jeff and I to not get too excited.  Unfortuantly with Elizabeth's upcoming birth we may have to put a hold on house searching for about two months, but we hope to have a new home by June or July.  We will keep you all updated on our move and house buying adventures.

Jason is two!

And what a year we have had!  Jason is such a sweetheart and I think we are getting so close to talking.  He loves everything train related especially Thomas the tank engine.  That was the first gift he got this morning and we had a hard time getting him to give it up to go play outside (his second favorite thing!)  When we did eventually get him away from his trains we took him to the best place that a little boy could imagine...McDonalds!  There he can eat french fries and chicken nuggets and play on a playground!  He almost passed out from exaustion on the way home and we knew it was nap time.  After nap we plan to open the rest of his gifts and have yummy cake after dinner.  I could start saying where has the time gone, but we are so lucky to have such a sweet fun little boy that I don't miss it at all...ok maybe just a little bit.  Every day is an adventure with our little man and we can't wait to see what the next year brings.  For your viewing pleasure we have some recent photos of our 2 year old!

 

 

 

Change is coming

Baby girl is due exactly 2 months from today and I am so unprepared!  I am really ready to hold her and cuddle her and introduce her to her big brother and welcome her into our family.  I am not ready when Jason starts being winey and not telling me what in the world he wants and I can't fathom how I am going to work with him when I am trying to take care of a newborn at the same time, on very little sleep at that.  We are not at all ready in that her nursery is still a very full office.  I told Jeff he had until the end of February to move the office out and the nursery in and maybe it is just the nesting instinct, but I am so restless to get started on making a room for baby!  There are some really good reasons for waiting, one of the better ones being that we don't really have a room for the office so it will just be taking over half of the living room, but it doesn't mean I'm not restless. 

I took this restlessness out on Jeff a couple of days ago.  I found a really great short term deal on an expensive double stroller.  It is the one I have had my eye on for a while, but we had agreed it was too much to spend on a stroller that we might not be using that long since Jason already resists being contained in a stroller.  In a year we hope he will be willing to walk beside us and behave.  When I saw this stroller at about $100 off I called Jeff before making that big of a purchase, and he said no.  I understand his reasons for saying no, but I don't like it.  I worry about being homebound and unable to take both of our children out because I can't chase Jason and carry or push Elizabeth, but we will figure it out. 

Then later that night I was changing purses because mine is falling apart and tried to put all my stuff in an old purse I was planning on using after baby girl was here to lug all of our gear.  It was way smaller than I remembered, or maybe I just carry way more than I realized.  Either way I started noodling around and went back to looking at a diaper bag I wanted early on in this pregnancy.  It is kind of pricy and Jeff talked me out of it before and I figured I could just make due with one of the many bags we already have.  Again, when I heard Jeff say no I was a little disappointed.  There were not the happiest of words exchanged in our house that evening, but the next day I analyzed why I was being so gimmy gimmy grabby and I think part of it is the fact that buying stuff was one way for me to feel more ready for this baby to get here.  I still want those things, but I know that as long as this baby girl is welcomed into our home with love it will all be okay.