Welcome baby Eleanor!

Baby Eleanor decided to make her appearance six days early (Thanks baby girl)!  At first she came slowly.  I started having contractions Tuesday evening around bed time.  They continued the rest of the night and all the next day, but weren't regular.  They were anywhere from 5 minutes to hours apart.  By Wednesday evening they were still anywhere from 5-20 minutes apart, but they were consistently getting stronger.
After we put the kids in bed at 8:00, I decided to call the hospital and see if they thought I should come in or not.  The nurse I talked to was NOT helpful.  After telling her all about myself and the situation she just said, "Well, it is really up to you.  We like you to have contractions five minutes apart for an hour before you come, but it is fine if you want to come get checked and see if we keep you or not."

Thanks for your non-advice!  Thank heaven I didn't listen to the five minute contractions bit and decided to come in to be checked.  When I got to the hospital I was dilated to a four.  Half an hour later when they checked me again I was between a 5-6.  They put me in a labor/delivery room and I asked for an epidural.  It took a little while for the anesthesiologist to get there.  Meanwhile my contractions were now about five minutes apart and getting stronger, but not too horrible.

Then they came in and started to get me ready for an epidural.  They had me lay on my side and that is when BAM...much harder contractions hit.  I'm laying there trying to hold still so they can get the epidural in and after about the 2nd or 3rd contraction in that position I was in tears (it is not easy to hold still and sob at the same time).  A couple minutes later they had everything in place and told me to roll over onto my back.  They gave me a test dose of the epidural to see if it was working and were about to turn it on for real, but hadn't actually done it yet when the contractions became pushing ones that I couldn't help but push for, although I was trying not to.  The nurse quickly checked me, saw the baby right there, and said to get the doctor in there now!  So they called for the on-call guy who was just down the hall.  He barely made it into the room in time to catch her head as it came out.  The nice part was that it only took a couple of pushes and was only about 10-15 minutes of hard labor pains.  When my doctor came a few minutes later she couldn't believe she had missed it!  So much for asking for an epidural!  I got to have the natural birth experience after all.

And here she is...

Eleanor May Burt.  She weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz.  and was 20 inches long.  A full two pounds lighter than Kaitlyn was (which is probably why she slipped right out without much effort on my part).

I'm so glad she came quickly like that so I didn't have painful contractions for too long.  And she is the first baby I've had where I didn't tear or need an episiodomy.  She was born at 11:28 pm on December 5th.  If she had been 32 minutes later she would share a birthday with my brother, Alex.  I guess she must have wanted her own day!

We are so glad to have her in our family now.  Hopefully we will all be able to get into a new routine quickly (one where mommy gets a little more sleep).