Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Welcome Samara!

So, I haven't blogged in a while, but I have the best excuse yet. I'm sure that most people who read my blog already know this, but it should be documented here as well. We had our baby!

Most shocking is that she is a girl, and not so shocking is that she's absolutely beautiful and sweet.
The details:
Samara K Hildebrandt (soft "a" in the "mara")
3.7 kg (about 8 lbs 3 oz)
52 cm long (20.5 inches)


The short-story series of events went like this: Saturday morning we had a bit of colourful excitement, we went to Jake's baseball game, out for lunch, over to visit Christian and Lee Fong, and then I rested for 20 minutes and my water broke (in bed - yuck). We then went to a burr-WI-to party at Ari and Julia's and then went into contractiony labour at about 10:30pm. We went to the hospital at 2:30 or 3am on Sunday when the contractions were three minutes apart and quite painful. Samara was born at 11:37 pm on Sunday night by emergency c section. I'm happy to share the events that happened in between going to the hospital and the birth, but you have to promise that you're done having children before I reveal. Just email me.

All in all it was a very rough experience, especially for me and Samara, but Matt, and Catherine, our doula were fantastic and so supportive. In the end we have a beautiful, healthy baby.

So far we're all doing okay - I'm taking a bit of a long time to recover (I have never had surgery before, and maybe I'm a baby, but I haven't felt too well!), but we're just relaxing at home, focusing on only the baby. She's eating well - she has even developed an extra wrist or two - and she sleeps like a champion at night, so we're getting good spurts for a few hours here and there. She has only pooped through our sheets and mattress pad once so far, so I think we're on the right track.

Matt has taken last week and this week off work (JPM gives him a whopping two days of paternity leave, but he's taking annual leave), and he's getting lots of stuff done and really enjoying the baby. He has definitely bonded with her, and it's quite cute how obsessed he is. He even admitted that he loves the baby WAY more than the Kitty (we weren't totally confident this would happen...).

We are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of Samara's Safta (Sue) and Papa (Sandy) on Friday night/Saturday morning.

Click here for more photos of her first week(ish).

1 comment:

Phyllis said...

Mel,
Please give yourself a break and realize that it'll take you a good2-3 weeks before you're really feeling good, and not just all right. You did have major surgery, and your body has to take its time healing. The main thing is that you and Matt and Samara have this time together and can celebrate with both sets of parents this amazing addition to your families. Enjoy the visits, and especially enjoy Samara at every stage. You never get these precious moments back. We in the U.S. love you all and can hardly wait to meet Samara in person.