Introducing

Claire Kathryn Thomas

Born on February 7th

10:12am

8 pounds 2 ounces

21 inches

A few notes on Claire's arrival into the world.

Zuzu's dude date was on Feb. 5. I had hoped that the 3rd time would be the charm and I would go into labor spontaneously rather than have another induction. I lucked out!

On Monday night Danny and I were watching "Lost" and I started to feel uncomfortable. It didn't really dawn on me that it was labor starting since I'd never experienced it before. Mostly I thought that I was laying the wrong way and that I was somehow making Zuzu cranky. I re-adjusted and figured out that the aches/soreness was still going on. 

I started timing the "aches" about 9:30pm. I quickly figured out that they were probably contractions. They were lasting just about a minute and were about 9 minutes apart. We called the birth center about 10:30 just to let them know and get our name on their radar.

We went up to bed and attempted to get some sleep in case it was the real thing. This worked out better for Danny than it did for me. Mostly I was obsessed with timing the intervals. It was intriguing and a bit frightening to be laboring and not be in the hospital!

I took my first shower about 1:30am. Mostly to get away from the snoring in our bed. Danny and Finley were quite relaxed! :D After the shower I kicked Fin out of our bed. Danny fell back asleep. Contractions lengthened to about 90 seconds and got much stronger but still were 8-9 minutes apart.

About 4:30am or so Fin woke up because she wet the bed. After Danny got her back in bed I jumped in the shower again. Things were starting to get much more intense. The water felt great but I had already had a shower and the washer was running with Fin's bedding...so I didn't get to enjoy it for long before the hot water was running cold.

While I was in the shower, Danny called Kirsten to come over and hang with the girls. He knew it was going to be time for us to get out of the house before the girls were up. We headed off to the hospital about 6am.

Apparently I wasn't the only mom to go into labor. We found out later that between Feb. 6 and 7 the hospital had 18 births! Because of how busy the labor floor was we ended up in the triage room (think slightly bigger than a walk-in closet) for a couple of hours. I was between 6 and 7 cm by the time we got to the hospital! I don't remember much of this time. Danny took care of most everything and was a wonderful advocate for me. 

We moved to a labor room around 8 or 8:30am. I vaguely remember trudging down the hall but little else until the epidural was inserted around 9am. We had been waiting for the anesthesiologist for quite a while. The midwife was going to get me in the tub to deal with the last bit of labor because she didn't think I was going to have enough time for the epidural. 

By about 9:30am I was lucid again for the first time since about 3am. It was like coming out of a weird dream. I was relaxed and comfortable and completely oblivious to the pain! At 10am or so the midwife asked if I was ready to push. I giggled and said "seriously?" She said yeah, let's have a baby. So we did! I gave about 4 or 5 pushes (and yes, I giggled) and out came Zuzu.

It was lovely to be aware during the pushes in a way that I hadn't been with Maya and Fin because of the pain. Definitely a different labor than the previous 2 births!

Here are a few more pics of "birth" day!