A Journey to the Center of OUR Earth

First things first:

Welcome to our earth, baby Erin Marie Norman!

Baby Erin entered the world last Saturday October 13 at 11:21 PM.  She weighed in at 8 lbs, 6 oz and was 21 inches long.  She met her brother at the hospital on Monday morning, and came home to meet her other four-legged brother around noon on Monday.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post about our little girl.  She arrived at exactly the busiest time of the year for me.  Just in time for Fair Hill.  Which started on Wednesday and just wrapped up today.  So any few minutes of free time I have had have been spent downloading photos of horses and posting them to the Fair Hill Blog, or updating information on the Fair Hill website.  Fortunately I begged someone awesome to take over the Special Events for me for the weekend so I didn't have to worry about that.

Anyway, now Fair Hill is done, and I have a few more posts to do this week some time, but there's no huge rush now.  So I can focus a little more time on our cute new little family.  Which, I am sure, is going to make John tremendously happy.  He is always wonderful and patient and helpful during Fair Hill, but this year he had to be doubly so.  Thank you, honey, for being awesome.

First picture of Baby Erin.  Do I look tired?  It was WAY past my bed time...

Before Dex was born a friend of mine suggested using HypnoBabies birthing technique for an easy, relatively painless natural birth.  Now, I'm not a person who can get in to meditation, or even yoga, without giggling.  And I wasn't sure that hypnosis was going to be my thing.  So I didn't do it.

This time around the same friend, who has now had 2 babies naturally via HypnoBabies, suggested trying this method.  And this time I said sure.  What the hell.  I'll try it out.

I, of course, being me, procrastinated tremendously before I started the program.  It's a 5 week home study course, which I started doing when I was 36 weeks along.  Fortunately Erin was a week late so I squeezed in all my practice, right under the wire.  And the first time I listened to a hypnosis track on a CD I did so with the stereo.  And John walked in halfway through.  And we both burst out laughing as the hypnosis suggested going to my belly, and getting my baby from there, and bringing her to my special safe place.  Ummmmm.  OK?  I guess?

Once I got past the first week (and could listen on the IPod with headphones, in bed) things went much better.  Every day I'd take my headphones upstairs, telling John I was going to hypnotize.  Have a good nap, he'd say.  And really.  Almost every single time I listened, I fell asleep.  I remember staying awake maybe 3 times?  In a month.

And I was skeptical.  But then on our way home from Longwood, looking at the lights, I did a little practice hypnosis.  And damned if it didn't work.  I dropped my finger.  I turned off my light switch.  And I could not move.  I mean, I guess if I really wanted to I could.  But I felt like I couldn't move.  And I could think about my aching back, and picture hands moving over my back and making it feel better.  And lo and behold, pain disappeared.  Huh.  That's some crazy stuff.

Fast forward to Saturday morning.  The boys went to soccer.  I listened to the "only listen to this when you're actually in labor, because if you listen to it before it could actually induce labor" CD.  Because, dammit, I was 41 weeks pregnant.  And I WANTED to induce labor.

At 5:00 or so, when Dex and I were playing in the basement, I started maybe feeling some contractions.  Maybe.  Nothing that stopped me from doing anything.  Nothing that I could tell a definite beginning and end to.  Nothing that I could really time.  But enough that I told John that he might not be making that trip to Lowes tonight, because I might be in labor.

We gave a heads up to our neighbors, who were our night time on call people.  John told a very unhappy (and also, sick) Dexter that there was a chance that the neighbors would be here in the morning when he woke up, and that Mama and Daddy would be at the hospital.  He was displeased.  He told Daddy that Daddy could go downstairs, and STAY THERE, thankyouverymuch.  I called my midwive's office and talked to the person on call at around 7.  When do I come in, I ask.  My contractions are 4 - 5 minutes apart.  I think.  She said come in when they keep me from being able to talk.  OK.  Can do.

So I went upstairs to take a bath.  John thought I was nuts.  Aren't you in labor?  Yes.  Yes I am.  But I like baths.  Took a bath.  Got dressed in comfy clothes.  Straightened my hair.  Listened to some hypnosis the entire time.  Went downstairs and paced around the house for an hour or so.  And, around 9:30, told John that I thought maybe we should go to the hospital.  Called the neighbor to come over.  Took the truck to the hospital, because if my water broke on the way there we didn't want to make a huge mess in the car.  Truck?  No problem.  Car?  Kind of gross.

The nurse was shocked.  Really shocked.  I came in fairly calm at around 10:00.  Breathing hard through contractions, but otherwise pretty calm and happy.  They were not expecting huge progress.  They were not expecting me to be 8 cm dilated and ready to roll when they checked.  OK!  So we're going to move to a birthing room, break your water, and then you'll have a baby.  Piece of cake.

I spent my time in the birthing room on my side, with John pushing hard on my back during contractions (that was new this birth - I don't remember back pain with Dex).  Three attempts to insert an IV in my hand, and then they finally gave up.  Broke my water.  No idea how long I pushed.  Not too long, I think, before Erin made her arrival.  Totally natural.  No drugs.  No epidural.  It still sucked.  But sucked much less than I think it would have had I not done the HypnoBabies thing.  The nurses and the midwives were impressed, and I gave the midwife the HypnoBabies info on Monday when she came in to discharge me.  She thought it was the coolest thing.

Erin is cute and sweet a lot of the time, and loud and frustrating in the evening when she won't sleep for shit.  Dexter has been absolutely wonderful with her.  In the morning when it's time for Erin to get up he comes thundering up the stairs.  It's OK, Baby Erin!  I'm coming, Baby Erin!  Here I am, Baby Erin!  He does call her Erin now.  On Monday when he met her, he called her the cute little baby.  And when you asked him what her name was, he said "I call her Jamie."  He seems to have gotten over calling her Jamie now.  Sorry, Dex.  Jamie was not on our list of names for your sister.  Dex also had to watch the "Don't shake the baby" video with us, so he was happily telling all the nurses that you cannot sit on a baby, and you cannot throw a baby, and you cannot shake a baby.  They were cracking up.

We seem to be doing ok as a family this week.  And next week should be ok.  John is still going to be home.  All hell might break loose when John goes back the following week, though.  Thank the lord for school...

Here's some pictures for you:

Being weighed, and umbilical cord being trimmed

New Daddy

During bath time

Crib card.  Erin stayed in my room the whole time.

Favorite snuggle position

First minutes home!  Erin wore a sweater and a blanket that John wore home when HE was a baby.  I can't remember who Carole said made them.  Maybe her mother?  So Erin's great grandma?  I might be wrong about that, though.

Buddy meets his sister.  This was moments before Erin flailed her arms and bashed Buddy in the nose, causing him to run away in alarm.

Dex holds his sister for the first time, for about 5 seconds before her crying freaked him out a bit and he dropped her like a hot potato.

Dex helps change Erin's diaper.  He still likes playing in her room while I am nursing.  He likes to climb in to her crib when she is not in there.

Family IPad time.  Hooray for IPads.  Seriously.

Dex helps tickle Baby Erin to wake her up.

Obviously not enough tickling.  So sleepy.

My friend Laura needed some newborn pictures for her portfolio, so she came to do a photo shoot on Friday.  This one turned out cute.