It's A Girl!

Eliza Marie was born at 1:01am this morning. She weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz and measured 20" long (my second biggest baby!).

Trying for the VBAC was a rough road, but I am so blessed to have an amazingly patient and loving husband and a terrific OB staff, both nurses and doctors. My water broke at 9:30pm Sunday night, and I really thought labor would take off and we would have a baby about 10-12 hours later. Ha! Shows that, even after four previous (all very different) deliveries, I still haven't learned that every baby comes into the world at their pace. And Eliza was no different! By 10pm Monday night (over 24 hours since my water broke), I was in a lot of pain from intense contractions, but still only at 4 cm dilated (imagine my extreme disappointment - understatement of the year). Over those L-O-N-G 24 hours, I was so ready too many times to throw in the towel and just get it done with a C-section. But Shawn was there through every painful contraction encouraging me that I could do it and that the pain on this end was worth the recovery on the other side.

I had three different OBs from my practice throughout the labor process and each one was awesome. They were all committed 100% to this VBAC, and not one of them rushed me or brought up having a C-section. You could see the wheels spinning with my final OB (who delivered Eliza) who was actively working on solving the "problem" of getting my labor to take off. Around 12:45am, labor was even more intense, so my OB wanted to just take a peek. I geared myself up mentally that I would only be another couple centimeters dilated. I was in shock when she announced it was time to have a baby. I was prepped, I peeked at the clock (12:59am), and Eliza Marie was born two minutes later at 1:01am. Twenty-four hours to get from 1 to 4 cm and then less than 3 hours to go from 4 to 10 cm! There is no predicting what will happen in labor!

Eliza is beautiful, nursing great, has a full head of dark hair like her siblings did at birth, and looks a little like a mix of Simon and Violet (and her cousin Finlay!). She squawks a little bit, nurses, and goes back to sleep. I am exhausted (five hours of sleep total over the last 50 hours), but I also feel great. I am so thankful we remained committed to the VBAC because this recovery is definitely worth those last 27.5 hours!

(Pictures to follow as soon as I get them uploaded on the computer!)