Baby Ada

Baby Ada was born 7/23, 10:43 PDT. She weighed 6 lbs 14 oz and was 20.5 inches long. I think her head circumference was 13.5 inches.

Erinne started having strong, frequent contractions at 11pm Monday night. From 11pm to 7am, her contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart, and we did not sleep Monday night. We were very disappointed when the contractions died down Tuesday morning. Erinne napped Tuesday. I slept a lot Tuesday night, though Erinne barely slept due to the contractions. On Wednesday night the contractions got even stronger, and Erinne was in significant pain. At 2am (Thursday morning) one of our midwives came to our apartment to check Erinne's progress. At 7am the same midwife picked us up and took us to the birthing center.

The labor was awful; Erinne had a hard time dealing with the pain. We spent a lot of the time in the tub. While in the tub, Ada's head started to show. It was difficult to get her past Erinne's pelvic bone. Erinne got out of the pool and started using a birthing stool. Ada shot out like a rocket. All three midwives and I screamed when it happened; we were not expecting it. There was something about the position she was in (not having her chin tucked down?) that caused her to come out all at once. At the beginning of the final push, all we could see was the hair on Ada's head, and then she came out all at once.

She has been very mellow in the first few hours of her life. She is quite active and alert, and can crawl on our tummies looking for food. She was able to latch onto Erinne within the first 10 minutes after being born, though she did not suck. The second time we tried to feed her, she latched on easily again and started sucking. We believe she was able to get some colostrum this time.