Zara Louise Merancy

It appears in this family we are an on-time, on-schedule kind of group. Friday morning we headed into the birthing center and the labor encouragement began. Since it really doesn't seem like a sure thing, it was actually quite funny since the midwife insisted we'd have a baby and before supper time at that. The encouragement included a lot of walking, a walk to Wal-mart to get some fruit to eat during labor and a trip to the park where we did laps on the walking trail in between me pausing with serious back pain/contractions. Note, I also apparently have had contractions for more than a week without knowing it since mine only manifested as minor lower back pain until I was deep in labor. Really, the first several hours were no worse than a minor common back ache.

Around noon we headed back to the center for a check-up and another round of tea and this time, things really got moving. About 1pm, I started having serious contractions and the dilation went from 5 to 7cm. Once I got to 7cm and it was really starting to go, I was able to get in the pool which was fantastic. Being in the water really, really was awesome. Even though the contractions were getting extremely intense the water at least allowed me to relax in between them. With the pushing about to start John got in to support me and we had a baby. Of course, it did not feel easy in the moment (at all, all you moms out there know what I mean), but Zara was clearly happy to make her entrance into the world yesterday and we only pushed 15min.

After nursing, getting all our checkups, and getting cleaned up, we got all the going home instructions. Thank goodness they write them down, I was pretty beat and so were John and Mona after such an intense day. But we headed home a little before 6pm. So here she is, Zara Louise is a healthy 6lb 4oz, 18 1/4in baby with blue eyes and long, skinny fingers and toes just like her momma and poppa. Right now I am especially glad we already get to enjoy her at home. Midwife will be making a house call tomorrow to checkup on us but I think it is going well so far.