See All of Alexandra's Photos Here!
NEW! See Video of Alexandra at One Week Old if Full High Definition!
Click the link above to view a video of Alexandra in HD! Once the page loads, click on the photo of Alex to start the video. You can hold your mouse cursor over the video to display the controls. Click on the "FULL" icon on the bottom right of the video to see the video in full screen mode. Click the Play arrow to start/stop the show. If you have a slower connection and it is taking a long time to download, hold your mouse over the video again and click "HD is On" once to enable the lower resolution playback. Althougth the HD version is worth the wait! Enjoy!
Alexandra's Birth Story
Alexandra's birth has been a roller coaster of emotions, along with a lot of unexpected twists and turns in our birth plan, but overall, we have a happy healthy baby and mommy and we are very grateful. Our original birth plan was quite different than a traditional hospital birth, in fact for the last 8 months, Melissa and I have been planning to have the baby right here at home as a waterbirth (birthing in essentially a portable hot tub). We were planning to have our midwifes there to take care of everything, and allow mommy and baby to relax and have a beautiful safe natural birth at home. For a healthy mommy, this approach is actually very safe, and the midwifes are extremely experienced. The peaceful environment keeps mom relaxed, and the waterbirth helps take a lot of pressure off from the baby, with the warm water helping mom and baby stay calm and relaxed. Up until the last week before birth (about week 37), Melissa has been in perfect health, and really looking forward to her calm peaceful homebirth.
Well, about a week before Alexandra's birth, things started to take a different turn. Melissa started getting high blood pressure readings, which began to get harder and harder to control. Melisa knew full well that if she could not get her blood pressure down it would mean that the midwifes could not support the homebirth and we'd have to go to the hospital. This put a lot of pressure and anxiety on Melissa, and did not help to make the blood pressure any lower. With two and a half weeks to go, it looked very much like our entire birth plan was turning completely upside down. In fact, that is exactly what it did. Despite a huge amount of effort on Melissa's part to relax and release the anxiety, her body had different plans, because she was suffering from a metabolic hypertension disorder called "pre-eclampsia", which only shows up occasionally in pregnant woman, especially towards the end of pregnancy. Not much is known on why woman sometimes get this disorder, or what causes it, and the only known cure is to have the baby. It is a rapidly progressing disorder whose main symptoms are high blood pressure, extreme swelling, and high amounts of protein in the urine. By Friday, Feb 1, after we got some lab work back, it was clear beyond a doubt that Melissa indeed had pre-eclampsia and would have to go into the hospital as soon as possible and get induced.
This of course was devasting news. Melissa has always had 'whitecoat hyptertension', and has never been fond of doctors and hospitals. Until the lab results came back, she was sure that her high blood pressure was just being caused by all the stress and anxiety that was getting dumped on her. We always knew that if something were to happen to put baby and mommy at risk we would definitely transfer to a hospital, but on top of that she knew she would have to be induced, which means being constantly hooked up to an IV with a Pitocin drip which stimulates contractions. Induction is typically a very painful and difficult way to have a baby, especially when the body isn't ready for it. It can also mean a very long drawn out labor (ie, days). This was a lot to take in on Friday, and both Melissa and I were feeling pretty devastated and robbed of our peaceful homebirth. We tried instead to push past the fear and grieving and focus on the fact that little Alexandra would be here soon. We decided we would check into the hospital on Saturday morning and try to make the best out of this crazy situation. I called my parents on Friday night, and they were on the first flight out in the morning and arrived Saturday evening, which turned out to be a huge help.
Saturday morning, Feb 2, we got up, after a restless night, packed our things, and headed to Banner Gateway, just 10 minutes away, where we checked in and were escorted to triage at about 11:30am. We spent about 2 hours in triage where Melissa got hooked up to an IV and started on magnesium sulfate to control the high blood pressure (which given Melissa's anxious state was already through the roof). We met our midwife's OB, Dr. Brass, for the first time and she confirmed the pre-eclampsia and said we'd be induced right away. Luckily for us Melissa was already 2cm dialated and 50% effaced. I think her body already knew that it needed to deliver the baby as soon as it could.
About 2:30pm we were wheeled over to our own private delivery room, which was actually pretty large and nice, since this was a brand new hospital less than six months old. Connie, our backup midwife, had driven across town to stay and support us through this ordeal. It was nice having that support there. Around 3:00pm the nurses came in and started Melissa on Pitocin, we had officially started the induction. We knew it could still be days of lying there strapped to machines and IV drips before this baby came out, and we prayed that this would kick off labor soon. For the next several hours, Melissa was actually having regular contractions, but still not really feeling any of them. My parents had arrived from the airport and stopped by for a short visit before heading back to the house. They showed back up before the birth and were able to be there for the delivery.
After 7pm the night nurses were on shift, and they were very nice, allowing us to focus on our Hypnobirthing technique in private. Hypnobirthing is a relatively new method, which takes some effort, but it is very effective. Basically it teaches you to go into a deep state of relaxation, or self-hypnosis, and uses long slow breathes for most of the labor. The idea is to get the body to relax and start producing as much endorphines as possible, which actually are 200% more effective a pain killer than morphine! The method really focuses on using the subconcious to control the body and make the contractions, or "surges", as they call it, much more effective and as pain free as possible. So once the nurses left us alone, we were able to dim down the lights, put on some relaxing background music and zone out. It was during these next several hours that we really got things moving. Despite all the other stresses and anxiety that was happening, we were able to accept our fate and focus on the labor. The Hypnobirthing really helped get Melissa relaxed, which was just what she needed, and helped to keep all her lower pelvic floor muscles loose and limp so that the surges could do their job, nudging baby lower and lower and dialating the cervix. All this time, Melissa was constrained to the bed and could only eat ice chips. But we made it work for us.
About 9pm, Melissa heard a "pop" and a felt a lot of downward movement... several minutes later we realized that her water had ruptured...we were well on our way! By 10:30pm the nurse check Melissa and she was already 7cm dialated. The next hour was pretty tough, as Melissa and baby transitioned and became fully dialated. Through out all this I never left her side though, and continued to coach her through it all. After 11:30pm Melissa felt the urge to start pushing, or "breathing down", as we do in Hypnobirthing. This part seemed a lot easier for her, and I was there holding her hand through each push. A little over a hour later, a saw the first glimpse of my baby girl, starting to crown. At 12:41am, on "Superbowl Sunday", Feburary 3rd, after some intense pushing, little Alex shot out into the world "sunny side up" (or face up, which is the hardest way to have a kid!) and was placed on mom's chest, were she promptly decided it was time to pee all over Melissa. Although at that point nobody cared. Our little girl was finally here! We got a good hour to bond with the baby before the nurses had to do their routine checks. But the baby never left the room or our sight.
Although the circumstances were out of our control and totally opposite of what we had planned, Melissa was still had a fully natural, beautiful and empowering birth. Even after the birth she never took any pain medications. I am so impressed with the way she handled the situation. She is an amazing and brave woman and I'm so proud of her. She made one heck of a cute kid too! We are both very happy to be back home now relaxing and spending time with our adorable new baby. :-)
