Welcome to the World Baby Elodie!

Several of you have been asking me about our birth story. Here is a brief narrative of the events that took place on that special day... followed by some pictures. :)

Our baby's due date was September 27th. However, at 6:30pm on Wednesday September 7th, three weeks before her due date, my water broke. Joe was watching his graduate statistics lecture when I tapped him on the shoulder and explained that my water might have broke. But before rushing to conclusions, we tried to take our time and wait and see if my water had truly broken. We sat down for dinner and tried not to panic. But when I stood up after dinner - it was confirmed that my water had indeed broken. We immediately called Dr. Kato, who asked us to come in right away. We arrived at the hospital at approximately 7:45pm. I was hooked up to a machine that measured the baby's heart rate as well as my contractions. The nurse quickly confirmed that my water had broken and my doctor explained that the baby must be delivered within 24 hours. Dr. Kato then explained that contractions should start on their own, anytime within the next several hours. If they didn't start on their own by morning, he would have to induce. After a couple hours, we were confident that my contractions had begun, although quite small in nature and without any discomfort.

By 6am, contractions were still small and irregular, so Dr. Kato decided to induce. The nurses hooked me up to an IV, which took a while to find a vein, and then began pumping small amounts of pitocin. After 30 minutes, contractions were not beginning to increase, so my Dr. increased the dose. This continued for several hours, upping the dose every 30 minutes until contractions began to increase in strength and length. By 8am, I was ready for an epidural. The nurse called Dr. Kato and he did the procedure around 8:45am. It took 15 minutes for the medicine to spread throughout the spine and eliminate the pain. After the procedure, Dr. Kato confirmed that I was 4cm dilated. The epidural essentially paralyzed me from the waist down, so I needed help moving and going to the bathroom. But the pain was gone, just a tremendous amount of pressure was felt.

An hour and a half later, the epidural began to wear off, so Dr. Kato inserted another dose. Based on the contraction strength and duration, Dr. Kato anticipated that it would take another 6-8 hours before I would be full dilated and ready to deliver.

Less than an hour later, I began to feel extremely uncomfortable. My contractions began to heavily increase in intensity, and I was beginning to feel the urge to push. We called the nurse, who did an exam, and saw the baby's head. She quickly called the delivery team and prepped me for delivery. Dr. Kato inserted another dose of the epidural. In the meantime, I was extremely uncomfortable and had the intense urge to push - but was being told not to!

Once in the delivery room, and after the epidural was given time to spread and eliminate the pain, Dr. Kato taught me how to correctly push. After about 45 minutes of pushing, baby Elodie was born at 12:49pm Japan time on September 8, 2011. Dr. Kato and his team suctioned her nose, and then placed her on my chest. We were able to cuddle and meet one another for several minutes before they took her to be cleaned up.

Elodie Cay Schreurs weighed 2785 grams (about 6 pounds 3 ounces) and was 50cm in length (about 19.5 inches). The team checked her vitals and joints, and confirmed that she was a healthy baby. We had to remain in the delivery room for 2 hours while the team monitored both baby and me. After 2 hours, we were able to go into our own private room.

I feel very fortunate that everything went smoothly. Dr. Kato did an amazing job and was an excellent coach. I couldn't be happier with the way everything turned out. Joe was a trooper that day - he was sleep deprived and exhausted, but stayed positive and supportive through everything.

Here are a few pictures from our first day with our precious little girl.

You can see more pictures of baby Elodie on our shutterfly website: http://emilyandjoepictures.shutterfly.com/