A baby story

Last Friday at 10:57 am, 11 hours after his due date, Elliott Patton was born weighing 3.46 kg and 50 cm long..... yes everywhere except America uses grams and cm for measurements. Basically he was 6 oz heavier than hannah and a half inch longer, even though to us he looks smaller and the doctors thought he was going to be much smaller. With both babies my due date was fairly accurate, Hannah was 8 hours early, Elliott 10 hours late.
My labor and deliver with Elliott was so much different than with Hannah. Here the midwifes and OBGYN doctors work together, every woman has both, but it seems like the midwife is usually in control of the labor and delivery unless something seems to be going wrong.  We had met with our midwife about 3 times before the birth. It was so easy, I just called her Friday morning when my contractions were getting strong and she said she would meet us at the hospital. We walked to the labor area and met her, we didn't have to see any nurses, any other doctors just her.
With Hannah I was in labor for 30 hours and everything obviously progressed very slowly.

we love the rock n play!

Elliott with Tammy

This time around I got up to go to the bathroom at 2 AM on Friday and felt my water break, I decided to lay in bed and just see how I felt after that. At about 4 AM I got up and started to time the contractions, to my enjoyment this time the early labor was stomach contractions, with Hannah everything was in my back and that was awful. Finally at 5:30 I got John up, I called the midwife and our friend Tammy who was going to watch Hannah.

Elliott with Trini and Hannah

The midwife said to meet her at 8 AM at the hospital. In the 5 minute car drive to the hospital I had 3 contractions so I knew things were speeding up! When we got there I had to lay down to monitor the contractions and babies heart rate. Unfortunately laying down seemed to shift the pain into my back..... Not pleasant. Also she told us that I was already 7 cm dilated when we got there and that this baby was most likely going to be born before lunch! After this I laboured in about every position imaginable while John massaged my back and encouraged me alone the way. At about 10:30 she told me I had to push and that the baby needed to come out NOW because they thought the cord might be around his neck... up until then it was just the midwife, John, and I, then the Dr came in with the vacuum and said she would need to use it if the next series of pushing wasn't successful due to the risk of the cord being around the neck. I had only pushed about 4 times before this, but nonetheless on the next push baby Elliott was born with the midwife catching him right onto the hospital floor. The cord wasn't around his neck, his heart rate might have just dropped a few times due to the speed and intensity of the contractions. We were able to do skin to skin contact and nurse right away.... This wasn't possible with Hannah because she had to get her lungs checked in the NICU right away. The whole experience was as relaxing at birth can be, with classical music playing in the background and minimal people involved and even speaking german the whole time!

Elliott and Hannah as newborns

We stayed in the hospital about 48 hours before coming home.  Having 2 at home hasn't really sunk in yet, but Hannah seems to be having a hard time with the transition. I am hoping having my parents here, from today, for two weeks will really help. I also can't yet imagine getting out of the house with two kids in the car yet, walks in the stroller I can handle, but actually driving somewhere and getting there on time.... maybe in a few months :)

Thanks Tammy for the blanket!!