Archive for October, 2008
Halloween
Wow! Halloween! Time is flying by. I’m back to work in only 2 more weeks! Aaaaah. It’ll be interesting to see how my body adjusts to that. Maybe Julia will start sleeping more in the next couple of weeks… (I hope).
Julia was a Frog for Halloween. Here’s a picture. I don’t have a picture of Paul in his costume yet, but will post one when I get one. Also, there are lots of new photos on the photo site: http://gauthierphotos.shutterfly.com/
Add comment October 31, 2008
Things
Things are going well. Julia is awesome. She’s a very good baby. She is generally very peaceful and happy. Her fuss times are pretty short and not every day. She sleeps “ok” at night. It could be a lot worse. I get about 5-6 scattered hours a night. She’s feeding every 3 hours. I’m hoping in the next couple of weeks she starts sleeping longer spurts at night. We’ll see… 
She’s 4 weeks now. She’s pretty incredible. She found her hands and can bring them together or eat them! She is also enjoying ripping her pacifier out of her mouth.
Julia is very alert. She has excellent focus. Oh – she’s also very strong. She can hold her head upright and rotate it 180 degrees (from left to right or vise versa). I call her “super baby”. We’ve got a doctor’s appointment this Friday, so I’ll post more information this weekend.
Check out some new photos on the site – http://gauthierphotos.shutterfly.com/
Add comment October 15, 2008
Julia loves to play…
Julia is super baby! Here she is at 2 weeks old playing!!!
Add comment October 5, 2008
The Human Body
The human body is amazing. Here is a shot of my stomach a few days prior to going in to labor, and then a shot of my stomach 2 weeks after giving birth. It’s wild!
Add comment October 2, 2008
Labor Story
On Friday night (Sept 12th), I started having contractions. They continued throughout the night about 40 minutes apart lasting about 30 seconds. All day on Saturday (Sept 13th), they continued about 30 minutes apart. The pain was mixed from mild to bad, but mostly moderate.
Around 7:00pm they were every 20 minutes and getting more painful and lasting longer – eg. 45-60 seconds. I called the doctor (Andrea Chisholm) at the hospital, and she said to hang in there and to call back if they got any closer – eg. 5 minutes.
Around 8:15pm the contractions were every 10-15 minutes, and were increasingly painful.
By 9:15pm they were about 8 minutes apart and extremely painful. I couldn’t take the pain any more, so I called the doctor and was told to come in.
Once at the hospital, the doctor discovered that I was nearly 6cm dilated, so I was brought to a labor room. It was baby time!
Once in the labor room, the contractions were every couple of minutes and were lasting much longer – eg. 60-90 seconds.
Around 11:30pm I couldn’t take the pain any more, so I asked for the epidural. The epidural was wonderful. The contraction pain went away entirely.
Around 12:30am (Sept 14th) the doctor came in to check on me, and I was about 7cm dilated. Since the epidural slowed down my labor, I was given some medicine to help keep things moving along.
Dave slept in a chair while I watched “Man vs Wild” on the television. As hard as I tried, I just could not sleep. I don’t think Dave really slept either…
The doctor came to check on me again around 4:00am, and I was fully dilated. I was told that if I had the urge to push to let the nurse (Jessica) know – she was checking on me every 20 minutes.
At one point the baby’s heart rate decreased, so a bunch of nurses came running in and had me change my position in the bed. They also gave me oxygen. Her heartbeat was back on track. For the remainder of the labor, I was on oxygen.
Around 6:00am the doctor checked on me again. She thought the baby was turned around in a position that may require a c-section. So again, they had me change positions in hopes that the baby would flip over. I asked the doctor how much longer she thought we’d be waiting, and she said we’d have a baby by lunch time. It can take hours of pushing.
At 6:45am I started feeling the urge to push. The urge became so intense that I called the nurse 5 minutes later. She came in and told me how to do a practice push upon the next urge. During that practice push the baby crowned, and she immediately called the doctor.
As the doctor was rushing in to the room, I had to push again. They told me to try to wait until the doctor was ready, but I couldn’t. The baby crowned again.
At 7:15am the doctor was at the foot of the bed and ready, so at the next urge I pushed and plop! Out came baby! There was such a feeling of relief both physically and emotionally.
The doctor and nurses were all smiling and laughing because of how fast it all happened.
The nurses took the baby and started doing whatever they do. It was overwhelming to hear her crying. Once she was cleaned up, they gave her to me for a few minutes. AMAZING.
The doctor needed to fix me up, so Dave took the baby for a while. I watched the 2 of them and couldn’t stop smiling.
Not too long after, Paul, Meme (Dave’s mother) and my mother got to the hospital. Dave took the baby to the recovery room to meet the family, while I continued to get cleaned up.
A little while later I was wheeled over to my room. When I got there, Dave said, “How about Julia?” That name was on our long list, but not really discussed. I have always loved that name. I told him that I needed to look at her. She didn’t look like a Calleigh, or Talia, or Jayne, or Dana… she was Julia.
Julia Rae Gauthier
September 14, 2008
7:15am
7 pounds, 11 ounces
20.5 inches
And that’s my labor story.
Add comment October 1, 2008
