Violet Clara is here!

Violet Clara arrived on April 4, Easter Sunday! She weighed 6 pounds and 8.8 ounces and measured 19.5 inches long.

I don't know how much detail everyone wants on her birth story, but I had a great experience. As I mentioned in my last post, contractions started at 4 AM. They had gotten as frequent as 7 minutes apart until I took a late morning nap. I don't know if it was the nap that interrupted the progress, but when I woke up, contractions had become more infrequent and irregular.

My parents arrived at 1:45 PM. I was hoping that Violet was just waiting until her grandparents came to make her appearance, but by 4:00, I still wasn't making any progress. Even a 7.2 earthquake didn't shake her out!

Our original plan for Easter was to go to church and then head over to Danielle's house for a little get-together. When it seemed like I was going to be spending the day at the hospital instead, I pretty much scotched those plans. But as the afternoon wore on, I decided I was through waiting around for Miss Violet to show, so we made plans to go to the party after all. Since Danielle lives only five minutes away from the hospital, we figured we could always just go straight there if labor started progressing again.

That turned out to be the best decision of the day. As I was driving to the party (yes, I was driving), I noticed that contractions were starting to come about every six minutes. At the party, they started becoming more intense and closer together. In between contractions, I was able to chat with friends and fill up on yummy food. Much more fun and comfortable than sitting around in a hospital bed! Finally, at around 7 PM with contractions four minutes apart, we decided to go to the hospital.

When they checked me at around 7:30, I was already 5-6 cm dilated and 100% effaced. I had an awesome nurse named Donna who read my birth plan and seemed committed from the get-go to me having the birth experience that I wanted. I had told her that I wanted to try for a VBAC with no epidural, although I wasn't going to be heartbroken if it didn't happen that way. She did everything she could to make sure that it did.

At 8:45, my water broke. When they checked me again, I was about 8-9 cm dilated. Contractions were pretty painful at that point. I think if I hadn't been told that I was going to start pushing very soon, I may have asked for the epidural (although I think I would have felt really bad about disappointing Donna, who was really cheering me on). At 9:20, I started pushing. Violet was born at 9:49. Tom got to cut the cord. After they cleaned her up, they put her naked on my chest for some skin-to-skin bonding.

The nurses at Grossmont Hospital were great, especially Donna and Liisa, the nurse we had the next day. What a difference from when I had Jack. And what a difference it makes not having had a c-section. Even though I'm pretty sore (I don't know how some people are walking all around, taking their kids to the park three days after giving birth - it takes me several minutes to get up from a sitting position), the recovery is going soooo much more quickly. We were able to come home to Jack after just one night.

(I'll write more about how Jack is doing as a big brother in a later post.)

I don't know if she is mellower or if we are, but so far, Violet is a really good, really easy baby. She is nursing well and sleeping well (KNOCK WOOD), especially if she is cuddled close to me. We are holding our breath for the two-week mark to see if colic is going to rear its ugly head, but for now, we are enjoying our precious little angel baby.

Welcome to the world, Violet! We are so glad you are here.