Emilia is born.

On 28 March 2009 at 05:52, Emilia was born at Huddinge Hospital.
As I have written before we were expecting a baby, and on Saturday morning she was born.
It is funny because earlier on the week I told to her while still in the belly that Friday would be a good day, and it all started Friday morning.

Well, my part of the story starts at lunch on Friday.
I’m sitting eating my lunch when I get an SMS from Marina asking me why I’m not on-line on MSN.
I reply back, with just “Lunch”.
After lunch I get back to my desk and log in to MSN again, here is a copy of the conversation.

Marina säger: (13.13.39)
hi

Marina säger: (13.20.42)
take the metal plate from cake


The cake was one Marina made, that I had brought with me for Friday afternoon coffee.
For that reason I had also taken the car, since bringing a cake in a stuffed bus , is not a good idea, well secretly I think Marina had told me to take the car not for the cake, but in case something would happen, since later she told me that the water had broken already before I was even awake that morning, but she did not want to tell me anything since no contractions at the time.

Anyway so on the way home Marina calls me, and tell me to go to the midwife clinic (Barnomorskemottagningen) on the way home to pick up some blood tests, we have been waiting for.

So I’m not home until about 14:30.
And when I get home I call the hospital, according to the phone log this is at 14:40, I explain that the water had broken this morning and that she had started to have small contractions, they told us to come in for a check to see, since we suspected the water had broken.

We drive to the hospital, a 15 minute drive, and arrive around 15:15.
They take us into an intake room and put some sensors on Marinas belly, to listen at the baby’s Heart rate as well as measuring the contractions, this lasts I think about 30 minutes, they then come back and say that they want a doctor to have a look, since if the water broke they can’t “Feel” down there, due to the risk of infection.
Unfortunately this is a very busy Friday afternoon and only one doctor on duty.
And since the contractions are not so strong, we have low priority, and have to wait.
And waiting we did, some 5 hours, apparently someone had to get an emergency cecarium (is it spelled like that?)
Meanwhile the contractions are getting stronger, but are not frequent, sometimes 20 minutes in between.
We move to a TV room while waiting, since sitting in that intake room is getting rather boring.

At about 21:30 the doctor finally has time, and we go back to the intake room, and she starts checking, she tells that the water has not broken, and that the wetness that Marina had felt that morning in combination with a bit of red slime, was a so called slime plug(Not sure how to translate it), and sometimes if at all, comes a week or two before delivery.
She also measures, and Marina is about 1.5-2cm open.
She asks Marina if she wants this baby soon, and Marina says yes, so she does something, I think she said to stimulate, but she points out that it is not sure that it will work.
Then she says that now we wait, the baby could come in a couple of days or even in a week or two.

The doctor leaves, and there is a midwife who explains a bit more in detail, she tells that the contractions should be more frequent and much much stronger, like a knife in the back, to quote what she said. She also tells that type of contractions she has now are more like the body exercising for the real thing.
We wait a bit longer, since we need to get our papers back, and also the journal for our visit.

And then we go back home.
We are home around 22:30, I read the journal of our visit, and it is very cryptic and with a lot of medical abbreviations, but I read something about going home with two citadon, not sure what that is, later on I find out we were supposed to have gotten some pain killers with us home, they just forgot to give it.

Marinas contractions are still getting stronger, but they are still not frequent and sometimes takes a break of up to 20 minutes.
She takes 2 Alvedon (Paracetamol)
But some time after midnight, Marina is getting in more pain, she goes into the shower to get some warm water to, lower the pain, I start timing the contractions, and get that they are between 3 and 5 minutes in between, but still sometimes takes a break of 10-20 minutes, I did not know I had to time the length also.

At around 02:00 while she is in the shower I call the hospital again, and they ask for the frequency and length of contractions, while on the phone i time the length, and get that they are about 20-30 seconds in length, the lady from the hospital tells me that they should be about 1minute, and not so long breaks.
They tell me to wait, since there are still some longer pauses in between, and they don’t think they are strong enough yet.

So we hang up, and I explain this to Marina, and she is not happy about it.
She is tired, and in pain, but we decided to try and get some sleep in between when the longer breaks come.
However there is no chance for this, so it ends up being a mix of sleeping, and timing the contractions, they are getting more frequent and stronger, but still not longer than 40 seconds, and still occasionally takes a longer break.
She takes another Alvedon.

The pain is getting stronger, and a bit after 04:00 Marina is in such pain, that I again call the hospital, asking what I can do to help her, since she is in such pain.
After a bit of convincing, they now agree that perhaps it is a good idea that we come in.

We grab the stuff we need, and I go and get the car from the parking, and then we go to the hospital.
We arrive around 05:00, according to the Journal we got written in at 05:15.
The time I have now are from the Journal, I only know that it all went very fast.

They again ask if the water had broken, and I explain no, but that we were there earlier since we thought it had broken earlier.

The again put the monitor thing on her belly, and this time the contractions show up strong, so half an hour later the midwife comes back, and feel inside of her, this time they say, that she is fully open, and the baby want to get out, so we go directly to the delivery room.

When we get there, they ask Marina to push, hoping the water will break. But it doesn’t, so at 05:40 they manually break the water, the first birth contraction starts at 05:45, and 4 pushes and some laughing gas later at 05:52, Emilia is born.

The first thing she does when she comes out is pooping, then screaming, but only briefly, as soon as she is on Marinas chest, she is quiet again.

I was so happy, I even cried a little bit, very emotional moment.
We spend most of the morning in the delivery room, waiting for a free spot on the BB, (This is a department on Swedish Hospitals, where women go to recover after the delivery)
While we waited they came to weigh the baby as well as doing some basic checks.
She weighed in at 3.7kg, and was 51cm long, and they also measured 35.5cm around the head.

But right after lunch we got a family room in the BB department, We went there, and I went home to grab some stuff, as well as getting some sleep, and a shower, did not get much sleep, to much excitement, but at dinner I came back, I took the laptop with me since I had earlier found out there were wireless internet at the hospital, we called Marinas parents on Skype and turned on video.
We slept there over night, we were both very tired, with not much sleep, she did scream once a lot, and it was when we put her in the baby bed, we took her back but she kept screaming, we rang the bell for the Midwife, and she came, and explained that many babies don’t like to sleep alone, and that she might be hungry.

I got a nice talk to this Midwife, and she gave many very handy tips, I also asked about cat’s, sicne we have two of them, she told that she herself has cats, and two children and that it was never an issue, also officially there are no recommendations, there are two believes, one is that having them around when you are small will strengthen the resistance to allergy, and the other is that one should be careful if there are allergies already in the family.
Since my whole family has pets, and I had them aroudn when I was a kid, and Marina is clearly not allergic, we are not so worried, we do keep them out of the children bed and stuff, but they are allowed to come and sniff, and investigate.

Anyway, the night went pretty smooth, we did wake up several times, but we did get some sleep. The next morning we were waiting to have the children doctor check up the health of Emilia, they asked if we wanted to stay another night, but both Marina and me wanted to go home.
The doctor checked Emilia, and all was well, so he allowed us to go home, but that we had to come back for additional check-up.
So I went home to go and get the car, and in the afternoon we were back home.
Since none of us had much sleep over the weekend, we tried to get some sleep, I was very tired, and so was Emilia.

Today we went back to see the doctor as well as making a hearing test.
All is well except she is a bit Yellow, apparently something quite common that should go away, but just in case we have another appointment on Thursday to see that it is getting less.

For more pictures, be sure to head over to the album.

For Dogs: How to hug a baby. »« Give Blood