Charlotte Rachel

Husband and I welcome our darling little girl to the world!  

Charlotte Rachel was born Tuesday morning, December 4th, 2012 at 1:59 am.  We are so in love!

As every woman has a birth story…here is mine.

Our Charlotte was due on November 27^th.  As the day approached I was getting anxious about when she would arrive.  I told my doctor, Dr. Wilder (who is amazing by the way), that I wanted to let my little lady come on her own time table, and unless it was medically necessary to induce her, I was going to let her come when she wanted. 

Charlotte’s due date came and went.  We became more anxious for her to arrive every day.  On Saturday evening, December 1^st, I started to have more contractions than I had ever had.  And they were more consistent, about every 8-10 minutes.  So as I didn’t have anything else to compare it to, we decided to go to the hospital around 10pm to see if I was in labor.  We were there for a couple of hours and as my contractions didn’t get stronger or closer we decided to go home and not wander the hospital halls in the middle of the night hoping to increase labor. 

Going home was the right choice.  The next day I had pretty much no contractions.  If I did they were hours apart.  Guess I wasn’t in labor after all.

Monday morning, December 3rd, I awoke after a restless night’s sleep.  That morning I started to have painful contractions, which were a new development.  My mom and I ran some errands and the contractions continued to increase and become more painful.  I think my mom wanted to go to so many stores to help get labor progressing.  We were at Walmart and I had a terrible vision of me giving birth in the check-out line and I became incredibly anxious to leave.

I sent Husband (who was at school) a text around noon letting him know I was having painful contractions and that they were about 8 minutes apart.  He came home not long after and we spent a few hours at home just timing the contractions.  I certainly did not want to go to the hospital and get sent home again.  And I’d rather spend the first part of labor at home then at the hospital, so I did.  Finally about 4 pm my mom convinced us to go to the hospital (she was so anxious to hold her granddaughter!).  We arrived at the hospital about 5 o’clock and they encouraged us to walk around the hospital for a bit before they would admit me, even though I was pretty much 41 weeks pregnant, they wanted to make sure.  So after one walk down the long hall to the School of Medicine at the University of Utah Hospital and back, my labor pains increased tremendously so we headed back up to Labor and Delivery.  Around 6 pm I was admitted.  We got settled into room 11, equipped with a Jacuzzi tub and other fantastic birthing amenities and met our L&D nurse, Melissa, as well as several medical students, interns, residents and attending doctors who were going to be participating in my little lady’s birth that evening. 

The attending L&D doctor contacted my doctor and got the okay to bread my “bags of water” to help labor progress faster, which she did around 8 pm.  Talk about a weird feeling.  I did have meconium in the amniotic fluid, which is a slight cause for concern.  For those who don't know, when this happens they don’t want the baby to take a huge breath right after birth as they could then pull the meconium into their lungs.  Instead pediatricians were prepared to whisk her away right after birth to suction her lungs to make sure this doesn’t happen.  Which meant I wasn’t going to be able to have delayed cord clamping or immediate skin to skin, which I was kind of bummed about – but at the same time I wanted to do what was best for my baby, so I happy with what was going to happen to help her. 

 I continued to progress fairly consistently with painful contractions getting stronger and closer together.  Between 9 and 10 pm I progressed from being dilated a 5 to a 9 – which is fast, and boy was it painful.  Very painful.  So much so I lost everything I had eaten earlier that day.  Husband was wonderful and so supportive during labor.  Though Husband and I had a bit of luck, as my momma showed up right around 10.  Husband asked if I’d called her and I told him I thought he had.  But nope, she just knew I needed her.  She is a trained doula, so she knows some great things to do like counter pressure points and places on your legs to massage to help increase labor.  For the next hour and a half she continued to help me.  We had a few people come in and ask if we wanted to participate in some studies.  As the University of Utah Hospital is an academic hospital, this is not uncommon.  I’d already participated in several studies during pregnancy, and you get some pretty great stuff, and there is no harm to you or to your baby.  So we gladly participated. 

A little before mid-night the attending doctor came in and let me know that I was ready to start pushing.  Unfortunately my doctor was not going to be able to be there as she was pretty sick and did not want to bring her illness into the hospital and expose my baby to it. Which truthfully I preferred.  I pushed for a little less than two hours.  Melissa, my L&D nurse, was overseeing it pretty much by herself, then at one point she told me to stop pushing as she did not want to deliver the baby because the little lady would likely come with the next push or two.  The doctor arrived and sure enough within the next two pushes she came! 

Husband cut the umbilical cord and the pediatricians snagged her immediately after.  I sat there and listened to them suction her lungs and was so happy when she started crying – once they were done of course.  Before I could see her everyone was telling me how beautiful she was.  Finally they brought her over to me and I got to hold her.  Oh how amazing it is to hold your baby for the first time.  She was so beautiful!  Sadly they wanted to take her to the nursery to watch her for a while so I didn’t get to hold her for long. My momma didn’t get a chance to hold her – sad.  But before my mom left we told her what we were going to name her.  We had decided to name her Lorelai Olivia. 

After everything was taken care of in L&D we were taken to our room, 2218, in Post-Partum.  We got settled in and were getting ready to try to get some sleep when I asked Husband if he was really okay with our daughter’s name, because as much as I loved the name Lorelai, I didn’t feel like it fit her.  I just didn’t.  He told me he had been feeling the same thing.  We discussed names and then decided that we should name her Charlotte Rachel.  My middle name and my momma’s middle name is Rachel, so I always wanted to give one of my daughters the middle name of Rachel to keep the tradition going.  And I have liked the name Charlotte most of my life, you know, Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte Bronte and I remember being in high school, sitting in the hall as my friends and I usually did at lunch, and hearing that my friend's friend was named Charlotte and that I liked the name enough that I put it in the back of my brain's "future filing cabinet of potential baby names" - who knew I would actually use it!  And as Husband lived in North Carolina for a while and loved it there, we decided Charlotte would be a good name to use.  So, that was it.  Her name would be Charlotte Rachel.  I hope she likes our choice.  Though I do know that if we have another girl in the future we plan to name her Lorelai Olivia as we like that name so.  Let’s just hope it fits her so we don’t have to come up with a different name on the spot. 

We had great nurses while at the hospital, Jill, Heather, Kara (a dear friend of mine prior to our hospital stay) and Monika.  They were very helpful with everything – especially with being a first time mom.  There are so many things you never pick up watching your nieces and nephews, and these ladies were a great help!

Several of our friends and family came to visit: my brother Bryce, his wife, Sara, and their daughter, Kate, my mom and dad, my brother, Kurtis, my brother, Eric, and his wife, Carlee, my friends Heidi, Cassandra and Stephanie.

After being in the hospital for a bit we brought our little girl home on December 5^th.  It was quite the rainy and cold night, and we were transporting precious cargo but we were so excited to have her home.  The first few nights were tricky, and I was very sleep deprived (and still am in many ways), but Husband is wonderful and right there helping with everything.  I still think to this day he has changed more diapers than I have.  What a great man he is!

We love our little Charlotte.  She has definitely changed our lives – for the better.  Every day is a new adventure, and we love it. 

First Picture

 Sleeping