Blaire Grace DeHope

Blaire Grace DeHope was born on Thursday April 8, 2010, at 8:43pm, she weighed 8lb 11oz, and was 22in long.

Jen's labor was pretty unusual. Things began happening on Easter morning when we woke up, we thought it might be an Easter baby! But after about 5 hours, a few walks, and eating a bite, Jen was able to take a nap, and contractions stopped. The same thing on Monday and Tuesday as well. The contractions never got strong enough to pick up a pace. But at 11pm Wednesday night they came and were much stronger. Jen couldn't sleep, couldn't even lay down, and was starting to be more serious. We talked to our doula. Even though the contractions were stronger, they wouldn't come closer together, or last longer, they just had a kind of lackadaisical rhythm that didn't change much. By Thursday at 7am the sun was rising and our patience was wearing thin. We decided to go to the hospital and try it there.

Our doula met us there and we set up in to the delivery room. It was more like a nice hotel room than a hospital room. It had a big tub, a bed that moved in all sort of ways, and we were able to keep it dark and quiet. It seemed like a slow day, not many other people were there. So we settled down and started laboring, again. What seemed to work well was to have Jen stay in the tub, by herself, and focus on making the contractions come and stay. Her cervix was responding really well, going from 1 to 5 to 7cm. But the contractions just weren't cooperating. Finally at 5pm the widwife and doula agreed: let's break the water. What a difference!

The contractions started to pick up. It was working! I stood there staring at Jen in complete amazement at how strong she was. The widwife and doula talked her through it and she did everything they suggested. Of course I was completely useless during this whole time. Jen pushed and pushed for a few short hours and finally there was a baby! 8:43pm.

They put her right on Jen's chest and both of them seemed to instantly be doing just fine. They offered to let me cut the cord but I was having more fun watching mom and baby. After a few minutes we tried breastfeeding but it was tricky because she is so strong and is a wiggler. We weighed her and she was 22 inches, 8lb 11oz, and what a squirmer! Everyone agreed we were doing fine and so we moved to a new, smaller room. This one had a bed for me as well, and after about 36 hours of being awake... all three of us crashed.

Sleeping in a hospital is not easy. It seemed like every hour or so, somebody needed to come in to bug us. And of course Jen had to feed the baby. Friday April 9 is our anniversarty but Ruth's Chris doesn't offer highchairs, so we stayed at the hospital. After lunch there was really only one chore keeping us there: naming this little lady! We had to name her before we could leave. Jen's favorite name during the whole pregnancy has been Blaire. And both Jen and her grandmother's middle name is Grace so we continued that tradition and named her Blaire Grace DeHope. With that final formality taken care of, we headed for home.

If you live in Louisville please let us know if you'd like to visit in the next few weeks.