Day 3: Elaina Gets a Bath

Elaina Comes Home!

As Elaina began her second day, we spent some quality time getting ready slowly and then heading home after being discharged from the hospital around 2pm. We arrived home to find a nice congrats sign that Jim and Sally had prepared to welcome us home.

Elaina Being Swaddled

Victoria practices wrapping a Baby Burrito before we leave the hospital. (Click on the picture to link to a video.)

From Elaina (Public)

She's Here

Elaina Elizabeth Rust was born at 9:36 p.m. last night, November 10, 2008. She's a healthy, 7 lb, 1 oz., 20 inch bundle of joy. We love her and thank God for a smooth pregnancy & delivery and a healthy little girl.

Making a Splash in Week 41

Week 41 started out like many of the 40 before it. We woke up, ate, got ready for church, and decided to snap one more belly photo...in case this might be the last.

Victoria and I had become very anxious since the Nov. 3 due date had come and gone this previous Monday. We emailed our friends Friday for a night dining out just to keep our minds off of the baby who wasn't here yet. Saturday we were able to keep busy with some shopping in Raleigh's North Hills (very swanky!) looking for a diaper bag for Victoria,which we did not find. (I've had my man version of a diaper bag--a black and red, drawstring, NC State bag--since I won it in a trivia contest at work in September).

We knew that Sunday would be tough to get through and we couldn't afford to shop and dine our minds off of the baby everyday until she would arrive. We decided instead to plan a nice long walk in the beautiful 65-70 degree fall afternoon to see if gravity might help get the labor pains going.

I argued for a walk on the Durham Tobacco Trail (don't worry, no nicotine is involved), but Victoria wanted to stroll the Streets at Southpoint, an indoor/outdoor mall just 2 miles down the road. She promised the choice of venue was purely for her comfort level, not for the possibility of doing more shopping.

I believed her up until the point where we found ourselves in the purse section of Macy's.

In Macy's we took the escalator up to the second floor at 4:25 p.m. As we approached the top of the stairs, Victoria flashed a funny smile and said we needed to find a restroom. Her water had broken.

That's the magic of Macy's.

We called the UNC Midwife pager as we rushed back to the house to gather our bags. They decided to go ahead and admit Victoria and start her on some fluids despite not experiencing any strong, regular contractions just yet.



By 5:30 we were settling into our very comfortable accomodations in the Labor and Delivery unit at the UNC Women's Hospital. I picked up some sandwiches for our dinner and Victoria focused on figuring out the TV's remote control.



Baby was cooperating and in the correct, head down position with a strong heart beat and good movement. Victoria was also cooperating and allowed me to snap a few photos as she settled in for the evening.

With the contractions not yet strong or frequent, the midwife wished to have us get a good night's sleep. She would consider starting pitocin in the morning if things were looking "good to go" at that point.

As of this posting:
- we slept fairly well last night
- Victoria started pitocin at around 7:30 a.m.
- Contractions grew intense to justify an epidural around 11:30am
- Victoria was feeling swell enough for me to leave for lunch around noon.
- Grampa Rust made his final [unsuccessful] pitch to get me to give away the name while I was heading to lunch
- Epidural made Victoria itchy at 2:00 p.m.
- She received a shot to help with the itchiness and is currently out cold catching up on her rest.
- Grammy and Papaw Wade should be getting here around 4:30 p.m.
- hope to have more updates later!

For those of you keeping score at home:

2cm dilated; 60% effaced; 0 station

Unfortunately, these numbers mean absolutely nothing except for the fact that the baby will EVENTUALLY come out. My appointment with the midwife went well today. Baby's heartbeat is perfect, belly measurement increased right on track, and no change in my weight gain from last week. (Weight sometimes levels off at the end of pregnancy- I'm definitely not complaining!)

I've been keeping busy with work this week, and this helps me keep my mind off of wondering when the baby will come. I continue to pray for patience every day!

I hope our next update involves a baby announcement!

A message to our baby on her due date:

It's time! You're ripe! We want to meet you! Please come out!