Claire Avery Hallberg

Claire Avery Hallberg joined our family on October 18, @ 1:33 am! The story goes like this: I had been having the usual prodromal labor - where I have regular painful contractions with no progression past a certain point. That point was 4 1/2 cm, 70% effaced. I held for almost 4weeks at that measurement, with contractions picking up every single night. When I went to my 38 week appointment, I hoped he'd send me straight to the hospital...but instead he told me the hospital had changed its policy, and wouldn't allow induction until 39 weeks. So we scheduled the induction for 8am on the 18th, which was my 39 week date...and I went home to wait out the next painful week. A few days later, the nurse at my doctors office called to say my doc was going out of town on the 18th, and I could either move induction to the stroke of midnight the 18th, or reschedule. I opted for midnight. :-) My mom drove down Wednesday, the 17th, arriving at dinner time. She took us to Applebees for a 'last supper', which we all thoroughly enjoyed...even though I was still contracting regularly, it helped to take my mind off of it. At 8pm, I was supposed to call labor and delivery to see when they wanted me to come in. They told me 11 pm. So we got the kids down for bed, and sat down with mom to look at pictures she had brought with her. Despite giving birht 5 times before, I was getting nervous. I had had far too much time to sit around and think about what was coming. :-) So I literally jumped when my phone rang at 9:30. The hospital was slow that night, would I be willing to come in now to get things going? Um, YES! We got there 15 minutes later. They got me in a gown and in bed on monitors in a matter of minutes. And then we saw that the baby's heart rate was 180 - 200.  Our nurse, JoDee, was very concerned, and started the IV quickly, hoping I was just dehydrated and it was affecting her heartrate. She then said let's check you. While she was checking, (5 cm, 90%- progress!) she freaked a little, saying rather than head, she felt a hand. At that point, she mentioned 'tachycardia' and 'c-section' and 'possibly NOW' all in the same sentence because the baby's heartrate was still crazy high, and now it looked like her hand had something to do with it. She tried to manually move the baby's hand (yeah, ouch), and then rushed out to get the doctor. He came right in and checked me. The nurse had been successful - the doc could only feel the baby's head, and her hr was coming down, so he broke my water right then. It was 10:55. As they were cleaning me up, the doc said ”What if we try to have her in 2 1/2 hours?” and then he left the room.  We kind of laughed it off thinking there was no way, and the nurse jokingly said ”I don't think you had a choice in the matter”. They started a low pitocin drip, and offered me the epidural. I balked at the idea because I hadn't felt any of the 'true-labor' painful contractions yet.  Joel and the nurse both reminded me I was already at a 5, and that from that point on, things might go too quickly to get it later. That was enough for me - the anesthesiologist was there 10 minutes later. I braced myself for it to hurt, but beside the initial poke, it didn't hurt. (angels singing!) At that point, they had me lay back for a few minutes to let the meds kick in, and then the nurse wanted to check me again. I still hadn't felt much except a weird spot on my lower abdomen about the size of a quarter that still had full sensation, but it was so small that it didn't cause any discomfort.  The monitors were only showing mildly stronger contractions than I had been having when we first got there, but I was at 6cm now. !!!  The baby was slightly turned, so she had me lay almost on my belly with one leg up to my chest to try and get her to turn. Joel and I watched Seinfeld for about 10 minutes when I felt a huge moving 'whoosh' - the baby had turned and was in the correct position! That was the weirdest sensation. The nurse came back in the room, and I mentioned that I had felt movement. She said, okay, lets try another position, so she put my bed straight upright, so that I was sitting upright, and then put my legs almost Indian style. I commented to Joel that I felt pretty silly, and he laughed saying I looked pretty silly. It was about 1 am. I tried to rest while he watched TV, but the baby had other plans. :-) The nurse came rushing back in the room at 1:15 saying the baby's heart had decelerated. She checked me and I was at 10, 100%.   She rushed around the room getting things ready for delivery and calling the doctor and extra nurses. Joel and I were just kind of stunned. The doctor stumbled in half asleep from being woken up, and slowly started getting dressed. We laughed a bit when the nurse told him to hurry. They helped me lift my legs, I pushed once, and the doctor said ”STOP pushing!” I told him ”I'm not pushing!” and she was here. The cord had been around her neck, and the doctor quickly unwrapped it and laid her on my chest. She was blue and not making a sound which quite frankly was terrifying.  Joel got to cut the cord, and they whisked her over to the table to work on her.  She had inhaled amniotic fluid, and was not breathing, but thankfully, within a few agonizing seconds, they had her cleared out with suction, and we heard her first beautiful tiny cry.  Unfortunately, I needed quite a few stitches from such a fast delivery, but she was perfectly healthy, so I didn't care. :-) The labor and delivery had been exactly 2 hours 33 minutes. She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce, and was 21 inches long.  Once they had us both all cleaned up, we got to hold her and just enjoy her for about 45 minutes before they took us to recovery. We both knew that the names we had picked out just didn't fit. I had really liked Hazel, and Joel had really liked Olivia. So we just stared at her and kept asking her what her name was. :-) We got up to our recovery room at almost 4am, and when they finally left us alone to rest, I said ”What about Claire?” We both knew it was the right name...but we had to check and make sure that Aunt Annie would be ok with that, since she had requested that name ages ago...thankfully, she was okay with it, and our sweet baby finally had a name the next day. She's been a perfect addition to the family. We're just adjusting to the new normal. For some reason the #6 seems so much bigger, but it really hasn't been that much of an adjustment. It's still crazy loud and fun, but mom's just a bit more tired than usual. ;-) We love her SO much! Xoxo, Angie