A Baby Story

We have a new addition to the Cuillard family!

Welcome Claire Whitney Cuillard,
Born: March 10th at 3:36 pm
Weight: 7 lbs 13 oz
Height: 19 and 1/2 inches
Apgar score: 9

We headed to the hospital on March 10th at 7:30am. By the time the Dr actually broke my water it was around 10...good old Dr's always running behind! He decided to put me on small amounts of pitocin after all, to make sure things progressed the way we wanted.

It's funny how your body purges out the pain of child birth. As the contractions started I remember thinking this isn't too bad. This isn't too bad at all. Cut to an hour later and I was ringing the bell for the nurse to come in like my life depended on it. Anesthesiologist, now please! Epidural yesterday please! Not that I wasn't planning on getting one. I just wanted to wait until I couldn't stand the pain anymore. I'm not sure why. It's kind of stupid really. If  I'm going to use the drugs, I might as well use them early on and be comfortable. I think in the back of my mind I was afraid if I got the epidural too soon it would wear off before it was go time and I'd be in trouble.

I've been lucky to have two really great epidurals. It was perfect with Brynlee and it was perfect with this one. The nurse came in and checked me and I was progressing, but slowly. I even dozed off for a while. When I woke up, I could feel we were close. I called the nurse in and she checked me again, I was a 10! So there you go. I went from a 4 to a 10 in an hour. She ran out and called my OB to come over ( his office is down the street). On a side note after only delivering at Kaiser previous to this I was amazed at how different this was. To see the same Dr all 9 months and have him be the one to actually deliver the baby is nice. At Kaiser they just pass you all over the place.

Anyhow, to not get into the nitty gritty on here, my Dr did not make it. That's how quickly the baby came out! I wasn't even pushing and the contractions where literally pushing her out. About 6 nurses ended up delivering the baby and my Dr ran in about 30 seconds too late. I've decided that I have horrible pregnancies, but pretty great labors. Anytime you have a baby and don't actually have to push to get it out is nice. So, if a girl out there wants to carry the babies for 10 months and then I'll deliver them we'll be in business!

We came home from the hospital the next day and are now adjusting to life at home with 2 kids. Basically how it's going is I take care of Claire and Jimmy takes care of Brynlee. I'm not sure which one is more difficult :) At least Jimmy gets some sleep with the kid he's taking care of.

We've yet to take a family picture... I'm hoping to lose some more of this gut I have in the next few days. I know, I know it's only been 4 days. But I'm still sporting a significant sized belly and I'm hoping it's not going to hang around forever. It feels so great to NOT be pregnant I find myself just smiling with joy. It's wonderful!

Interesting Fact: Under extreme high pressure, diamonds can be made from peanut butter