Friday, September 9, 2011

welcome to our beautiful baby girl

Last Monday, I had my 40 week appointment to see how my pregnancy was progressing. My doctor told me it wouldn't be long before the baby came, defnitely before the week was up. I was 80% effaced & dilated to a 2.5. To speed things up, he recommended walking & eating tomato & garlic pizza. Well, after my appointment, I was pretty uncomfortable & kept pacing around, hoping that would help labor start. Around 5:30 (6 hours after my doctor appointment), my mom & I got Will in the car to go get some pizza at BJ's Brewery for dinner. Once in the car, my contractions started. They got more & more painful, so I started timing them - about every 4 or 5 minutes apart. I wasn't sure if they were legitimate contractions or not, so we kept driving to dinner, got inside, & ordered our food (of course, I was in enough pain & having contractions every 3 minutes by now, so when the waitress asked me what I wanted, I couldn't talk & kept firmly tapping the menu to let her know. She didn't get the hint, so I finally had to tell her "BJ's Favorite" through gritted teeth & a hard contraction.). Before our dinner even came, I told my mom I had to get to the hospital. The waitress ran behind us with our boxed-up pizza. I couldn't wait to tell my doctor that just getting in the car on my way to get pizza, my labor had started. I didn't even have to take a single bite of it for the garlic & tomato to kick in.

We got to the hospital where I was hooked up & monitored to determine whether or not my labor was genuine. Turns out it was. My mom & Will sat in the room with me (actually, Will climbed around the different machines & kept saying, "Oh wow!" whenever he saw something interesting), & then Scott showed up. I was so grateful to have him walk in the room (looking all fancy in his firefighter uniform), & felt instantly better having him there with me. By this point, I was 80% effaced & dilated to a 4. The nurses took me to my labor & delivery room, & within the next hour or two, I had my epidural (thank goodness for numbing medicine!). After another couple hours, the midwife came in & broke my "bag of water" (does that phrase sound funny to anyone else?), hoping to speed up the process. She predicted the baby would be here in 4 hours. I thought differently, but kept my mouth shut. At this point, my contactions got so bad that even though I had an epidural, I got really nauseous & was shaking horribly (again, so grateful I couldn't feel the contractions very well). Two hours after my water was broken, the midwife checked me & said it was time to start pushing. Within four contractions, our little girl was safely delivered to us.

our new addition

My entire pregnancy, Scott & I could not come up with a name for a little girl. We had a long list of potentials, but nothing stuck. At one point, we even decided on the name Camilla Jane, but after hearing people refer to my baby girl as "Camilla" or "Millie," I just couldn't take it. It just didn't sound right to me. The week prior to our baby girl's birth, Scott & I finally narrowed our list of names down to 5, & these were the names Scott listed on the whiteboard in the labor & delivery room.



As soon as the baby was born & the nurses handed her to me, I instantly felt like she was a Ruby. This thought was confirmed even more to both Scott & me when everyone in the room kept commenting on her beautiful rosy lips (they referred to them as little rosebuds) & her  healthy red skin. She was our beautiful little Ruby. While the nurses cleaned her up, weighed her & performed their tests, I looked at Scott & said, "She's not an Emma or a Clara." He went to the whiteboard & crossed those names off. I looked at her again & said she wasn't a Lucy - he crossed it off. It was down to Grace & Ruby. As soon as we were left alone for the first time after she was born, we both immediately decided on Ruby. After such a long time, it felt good to finally have a name for our sweet girl.

Ruby Jane
born at 2:20 AM on Tuesday, August 30
8 lb 2 oz, 20 1/2 in




11 comments:

  1. LOVE this. She is absolutely perfect and I'm glad that you didn't have to put forth much effort to get her to start coming. Seems like a smooth labor all around (beside the nausea and shaking). You don't even look like you just had a baby in these pics. It kills me. I love the name Ruby and it's neat that you have a little story for her that you both just felt that that was the name for her. Congratulations! Hope to meet her soon!

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  2. I am so glad that you had a good delivery and it wasn't like wills delivery. I love the name Ruby and I am so glad that you put Jane as your middle name. She is so cute. I still can't believe that you had an 8 pound baby. Take care of yourself and I hope everything is going well with Will and he isn't too freaked out by Ruby.

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  3. You look beautiful! Why do you look so beautiful!??

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  4. She is a ruby for sure! Congrats to you all!

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  5. Congratulations! Ruby is a beautiful baby girl!

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  6. Good job mom and dad! Ruby is a little beauty, but why wouldn't she be? Look at her beautiful mother!

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  7. Liz....great pics...you and Ruby look beautiful!

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  8. Liz, congratulations! She is gorgeous and you look so beautiful too. I am so happy for you!

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  9. I'm so glad you wrote out the details... I love reading about birth stories! Ruby's name is perfect, I love it! So glad she's here and you're doing so well! Love you all

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  10. Oh my gosh, I am so behind on reading blogs!! Congratulations on the birth of your little Ruby Jane! She is gorgeous and that picture of Scott holding her and you watching them is soooo beautiful and precious.

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  11. I meant to comment on this so long ago, but I've been too busy to comment! You weren't kidding about the ruby red lips, they are the prettiest little rosebuds! I can't wait to meet her, she's such a beauty.

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