the wait is over!

Feb 08, 2010

Ellie is here!  She was born on January 28th at 10:02am, just 2 days past her due date and 10 hours after her aunt arrived hoping to catch her birth!  She was very accommodating–I went into early labor in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but Ellie held off kicking things into gear until Thursday morning–long enough for us to get a decent night’s sleep Thursday and long enough for my sister-in-law to hop on a plane!  Active labor began at 6:30 am Thursday and by the time we got to the hospital I was already at 8cm.

I used the hypnobabies hypnosis for childbirth self study program for the birth and would highly recommend it to anyone planning a non-medicated birth.  With Will, I used the “whine and beg for death” method of natural childbirth, and it certainly had the same end result (a baby), but it was a lot less pleasant for all involved.  :P  The hypnobabies program kept me positive and patient during those traditionally impatient last few weeks of pregnancy, and focused and calm in labor until it was time to push (at which point I admittedly dropped the hypnobabies and switched to the curse/panic/beg for a c-section method of natural childbirth).  If any preggos have questions about the hypnobabies program, just let me know–I would be happy to share more with you!

One of the very cool parts of Ellie’s birth is that we had a photographer to document it.  Charlotte Geary, a Colorado Springs photographer I have admired for a long time, photographed the birth and she is now an honorary member of our family.  Not only did she capture the most beautiful photos, but she was the perfect attendant at such a time–she was very discrete, but I could still feel her pulling for me.  And when Ellie poked her head into the world, I think Charlotte cried just as much as I did!  We are so grateful to her for creating my new most favorite photos and for being “on standby” for weeks as we waited for Ellie!

Here are a few of her amazing images:

(relaxing through a contraction as Nic checked us into L&D)

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Meeting Eloise Marie:

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The moment I’d been looking forward to for 9 months finally arrived: Will got to meet his baby sister!  It was love at first sight–he completely ADORES her.

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And then the amazing Charlotte finally got to hold Ellie!

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***

We are home and doing very well.  Will continues to adore Ellie–I think the biggest obstacle in her life right now is just getting sleep around all of the kissing and petting.  At any given moment, the scene at the Turchin household looks something like this:

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I’m behind on email (as you can imagine) but we will be slowly getting back to normal in the next few weeks.

Posted in Personal