January 2012 Babies

I made a Facebook group for the members of this community to be able to talk and ask questions and for advice, etc. I figured most of us are probably on facebook more than livejournal, I know I am! :)

http://www.facebook.com/groups/167…

I hope this is ok to post here. My daughter is in a photo contest and I was wondering if you might vote for her. You can vote once each day until July 1, it only takes a minute and you don't have to give any information to vote. Thank you!

http://photos.parents.com/category…

Thanks!

Anyone still pregnant?
How far along are you?
What symptoms are you experiencing?
How are you feeling?
Any Dr. appointments/ultrasounds/tests this past week and how did they go?
Anything big happening in your personal life (moving, work related, family, etc.)?
Any food cravings?
Tell us your favorite thing about your pregnancy this week.
Any questions you want to ask?

For those with babies:
How old is your baby this week?
What's up with you emotionally & mentally this week?
What has been your biggest challenge this week?
Has your baby accomplished a new milestone this week? If so, what?
Has your baby had any appointments or play dates? How did they go?
Random things of note?

We welcomed our sweet little cupcake gently in the water at home on January 31, 2012 at 12:40am. 

After almost a month of prodromal labor, I started having contractions that I had to vocalize through around midnight on Friday. These continued, 2-3 minutes apart until Monday afternoon. We finally went into the birth center and had only made progress to 2-3cms. Her body was LOA but her head was OP and tilted slightly upwards because of a nuchal hand. We started black and blue cohosh to try to get the contractions strong enough to re-position her. This didn't do much but give me stronger, unbearable contractions with no progress and no baby turning. I finally had our chiro come over around 9pm and adjusted me on the birthing ball between contractions. 20 minutes later my waters released. She finally turned her head and was directly on my cervix extremely quickly which caused my cervix to swell a bit. My husband and I continued to be active and work through them. We were in and out of the shower, bed and couch. It took me about 2 hours to get from 3-5 cms because of the swelling. When I hit 5 cms though I started to transition, which isn't common. My body was pushing and I had no control over it. They had just gotten the birthing tub filled and warm enough for me to get in but not for baby to be born. Our wonderful midwife was coaching me through breathing through the urge to push so I didn't tear my cervix. I had my hand in my vagina and could feel baby's head RIGHT there and could feel myself dilating. It took me 20 mins to get from 5 to complete. Breathing through pushing was by far the hardest thing I have EVER had to do. I kept my hand in my vagina and slowly eased baby out. I could feel she had lots of hair and was ecstatic! I moved from squatting to floating on my back once she started crowning. I pushed her out to her eyes and let her sit there through a contraction to stretch things out. I didnt want to tear. I eased her head out. She had her cord wrapped around her neck and I relaxed while our midwife unwrapped it. I pushed her out to her shoulders and was DONE by this point so I reached down and pulled her the rest of the way out and brought her to my chest. We were SO SO happy she was finally earth side after 4 days of laboring. She was perfect! Pinked right up, no crying just very calm and alert. No head molding and tons of hair and blue eyes! We got out of the tub and moved to the bed to birth the placenta. It came out beautifully on its own shortly after I latched her onto my breast. We waited for the cord to stop pulsating and to turn very white and limp. We had decided well before the birth to not clamp and cut, but to do cord burning. It went fantastically and only took about 5 minutes. We got baby cleaned up and in a diaper. Daddy held baby while our midwife got me into an herbal bath. Once I was situated she cleaned up the room and changed our sheets for us and helped me get dressed and situated. I nursed baby, our midwifes left and we fell asleep while Daddy drained the birth tub. I later did a raw placenta smoothie, did prints and encapsulated/tinctured my placenta. We have had some latch issues and nipple damage problems that are healing and working themselves out. She is super healthy and just perfect. SO different from our boys. She sleeps for 4 hour stretches, wakes once at night, never cries or fusses. She was 8 lbs 2 ozs at birth. Two days later she dropped only 1 oz and then at her 6 day ped appointment had gained 10 ozs since birth. On Monday she weighed 8 lbs 12 ozs! She is doing so well they dont need to see her back until 2 months. She has brought such immense joy to our already love filled family. We can't wait to watch her grow and thrive and turn into an amazing little person. :)

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Jeremiah Davis was born on January 11 at 1:28 am.  He was 7 lb 0 oz and 19 1/2 inches long.  After two nights of false labor and 12 hours of real labor at home, we went to the birth center thinking that my contractions were five minutes apart (actually got much closer together really fast).  The midwife checked me right when we got there and I was already fully dilated! So she filled up the tub, I got in a started pushing.  So our little boy was born only about two hours after arriving at the birth center.  Labor and birth was so much more intense than I had ever imagined, but I'm so happy we were able to do it naturally without any interventions at all.  The water birth was really nice and I only had a first degree tear. 

I can't believe how amazing this little guy is.  He immediately and drastically changed our lives.  The first couple weeks were super difficult for us since we had a ton of problems breastfeeding.  But we're now getting in the swing of things and really enjoying this time. 

Thanks so much for all the support that this community provided throughout our pregnancy!

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x-posted to pregnant, natural birth

Thought I would finally get around to posting a birth announcement of sorts:

On January 16th at 7:32pm, Brynn Marie was born! I was 41w 6d's at that point and sooooo ready for her arrival. My water broke on the 15th and contractions started early afternoon. The birth was long (to me at least), but there were no complications besides an episiotomy and she was a v. healthy baby. We did have an issue with the midwife recording her birth weight wrong (apparently the scale at the hospital was broken and she was recorded at 6lb 11oz but then weighed in at 7lb 9oz only 3 days later after having trouble latching, sooooooo we'll never know what she actually weighed at birth grrrr) but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal.

2 weeks and 3 days later, Brynn is doing well. We have had many a sleepless nights and trouble with breastfeeding, but things are finally starting to fall into place and she's doing great. 


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I've been going through all the past birth announcements here and hope everyone else is doing well with their little ones!

Still pregnant. My EDD was the 20th. I'm 41 weeks 4 days now. I've been laboring at home since Friday at midnight. Just not starting to actively dilate due to baby being OP. After almost 46 hours in labor we hope to have our home birth babe by morning.

I can't believe I forgot to post here! Liam is finally here! After 4 days in the hospital trying to be induced I was sent home on Saturday afternoon to "rest for 24 hours" because my midwife thought that if we took a little break my body would be more responsive to the induction. I went back to the hospital Sunday evening after having contractions off and on all day Saturday after I left and all day Sunday before going back. I was having too many contractions for cervadil so I was given pitocin overnight again and had no change at all, again. LO hadn't dropped and was perfectly happy we're he was so they decided to do a c section at 11am on Monday 1/9. Liam was born at 11:44 pm and those first cries were the best sound I have ever heard! He was 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 1/4 inches.

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