So there she is that is my beautiful little girl. She'll be three weeks this Sunday...I honestly can't believe it's already been THREE whole weeks since she was born. Part of me thinks it's flown by and then the other part of me can't remember a time when she wasn't here.

My parents left this past Wednesday after been here for three weeks...that was very sad for me. I gotta say I was getting used to my mom being here doing all of my cleaning and food making for me. My sister is leaving tomorrow and then Monday that's it I'm mom by myself...at least during the day. Jonathan is such an amazing help when he's here it's wonderful. I'm not all that worried about being with her all day by myself...I'm just in awe that it's me that gets to be her mom.

She is an absolutely amazing baby. She really is. She's been sleeping really well...she wakes up to feed and then usually goes back to sleep. In fact the first stint at night she sometimes even gives me almost four hours before she wakes up again...unless she's cluster feeding then I'm a dairy cow on call...LOL Sometimes once an hour...but since this gets to be my job I don't mind doing it...I don't know if that's just cause it's only been three weeks or because I have been sleeping during the day a lot. Heck I'm taking everyone's advice and sleeping when she sleeps even with my family here...although they've been doing my cooking and cleaning so even while I sleep stuff gets done...I'm not sure what'll happen next week. My mom comes back in September I hope it's not too messy here for her...hahaha

On Monday just before my parents left we got Jonathan's Aunt to take some pics of Arielle and they came out amazingly honestly they make me cry I can't believe that the baby in those pics is my daughter she's just so gorgeous it's painful...lol I have some of the pics up on my facebook...but I'll try to add a couple to my posts when I get a chance to rant about what it's like for me being a first time mom. :)

Well so the day came and I actually did manage to have my baby. Here are the stats before I get into the lovely story...her name is Arielle Dawn Banman. She was 7lbs 4oz and 20 inches. Born on June 29th at 2:43pm by c-section <-- I'll explain that...lol

Okay so here's how it starts. On Saturday the 28th was really the day I wanted to have her because my mom had been here a couple of days and really helped us set up the apartment so I was so very beyond ready to have her. I also knew that it could take as long as two more weeks and was prepared to whine the whole time. Anyway on Saturday my dad come out to hang out with us so we went out for lunch when he got her. I went to the bathroom and felt a very mild contraction and decided not to get my hopes up because they had been happening randomly for the last couple of days with no pattern. But my mom started counting them anyway.

After lunch we grabbed some groceries and I had a couple more...then we got home and played a board game...Jonathan made an amazing dinner and I decided I wanted to walk to Dairy Queen for desert because if these contractions were real I wanted them to progress...so we did and they did but still not with much rhythm and all over 15 minutes. We get home and start to watch "Transformers" and they just kept getting more intense and closer together...so in short before the movie was done we were on our way to the hospital. I got checked in and was waiting in triage about two seconds when my water broke...just as my midwife walked in so it was up to a birthing room for me.

Without going into too much gory detail about contractions and pain (I'm apparently good at contracting and can take a fair amount of pain) I laboured without drugs for about 6 hours before it became too intense and almost felt like I should push (my mom and Jonathan were absolute SAINTS at the point I would have died if they hadn't been there)...that was when my midwife checked me and found out that my pelvic bone is too narrow and was not moving...in short I was supposed to be at 10 centimetres dilated (by the end) but my pelvis would only get to 2 1/2. They gave me an epidural and I almost promised Arielle to the anaesthesiologist...lol The epidural went in at about 4am Sunday morning (the 29th).

I managed to relax a bit and get some 'sleep'...and so did my coaches which was great for them. I had the epidural in for most of the day. I could still feel my contractions but they weren't at all as excruciating as before. I was checked again and they realized that not only did I have a small pelvis my cervix was not coming down...PLUS she had moved from being face down to being face up...which turned my labour into a full back labour. At around noon the pain was getting intense enough that I could feel it through my epidural so they 'topped me up' and about an hour later I was fully dilated and they decided that maybe I could push. Sometimes women can push through a small pelvis and the baby can still make it up and over with more of a problem but it's possible. So I pushed for 45 minutes but frankly got no where except more tired/exhausted/ drained then I ever thought humanly possible. At that point the option was either get topped up again and in two hours try to push again on the off chance that maybe it would work that time (the thought was probably not) and then have a c-section or just have a c-section. Now if I had been told that the birth would be normal (face down and pelvis wide enough) I would have waited but the idea of MORE back pain, contracting with heavier drugs and then pushing again on the off chance that I MIGHT have a regular birth was not appealing. I had nothing left so we opted for a section.

Arielle was born at 2:43 via c-section and even had a bit of a conehead...lol I'm now heading into our first night at home, I'm sure I missed some major things but heck I've had a long week and have a very cute distraction.