It's a girl!!

Audrey Jane Anderson
December 7, 2008, 8:10 pm
8 lbs, 15 oz., 21.5 inches

Her Name:
Audrey after my great grandma. Jane after J's Grandmother.

Nicknames:
Audball. The A bomb. Little Monkey. Anderson Pooper.

Likes:
"Getting groceries" (aka nursing), plus sucking daddy's fingers, and the tip of his nose.

Dislikes:
Pacifiers. Sleeping.

Other Tricks:
Can scooch and crawl up daddy's chest if she's laying on top of him.
Can get her hands out of the tightest, most insanely snug swaddles.

Labor Details:

Not sure if it was the trip to Lowe's, acupuncture, the raspberry tea, or the curry dinner, or the combination of all of them but I started getting contractions on Saturday night around 10 pm or so. We called our doula at around 1 am.

Yup, I said doula. The first 7-8 hours of labor were at home with Mr. Anderson and our fantastic doula, Jen.

Now before you think I've gone all granola on you, the back story is this: My goal for labor was to put off medical intervention for as long as possible in order to protect my back. Sounds counter intuitive, but when you get an epidural you can't feel *anything*, which is problem because when you have a herniated disc, you only know if you're re-triggering the herniation by the type of pain you feel down your leg. If you can't feel any pain, you can't correct and realign. By pushing an epidural until as late as possible, I could move around and control my positioning, thereby protecting my lumbar area. (And as bonus, holding off on the epidural also reduced my chances of needing pitocin, thereby reducing my chances of c-section, which would have also put my back at risk, plus made recovery harder.) So there you go. Your type A working girl turns granola. Anything to never go through that back pain again.

Actually, I should say I was really happy with the experience I had during those first 8 hours. Not just because I successfully protected my back, but being at home was actually were a very special experience. Let me just say, my husband was an amazing support -- we really became a "team", and our doula kept us both calm. By the time we left to head downtown at sunrise, I was moving into active labor, but feeling confident and anxious to meet the baby.

At the hospital things got a little tougher. After the epidural, everything slowed down. I was really limited to just one position because of the pain meds and my back, which made dilation progress less quickly (freakin' 8 hours to go the last 3 cm!), and in the end pushing took 3 hours and yielded very little. We finally had to bring our baby into the world via "salad tongs" (Andersonese for Forceps).

In the end I was so exhausted I could barely see a foot in front of me, but when the baby actually came out Mr. Anderson lifted me up a little and in all the commotion, I only heard him. He said, "Look, it's Audrey!"

In that instant everything cleared away and we were a family. So here we are. She's perfect, healthy and feisty. We're very happy.

Give us a few more days to figure things out before you demand more pictures. (That means you, mom.) We truly appreciate all the good wishes and support.