Olive Elizabeth

Olive Elizabeth Kerr
7 lbs.
19 inches long

born April 14 at 1:48 pm

Olive's birth story is very different from Hannah's.  After waiting 40 weeks and 2 days, it was time for Olive to come out.  I scheduled the induction on the 14th because I liked the date (4-14-11).  Here's my last pregnant picture taken that morning:

We got to the hospital at 6:30am and my doctor broke my water around 7:15.  They started me a very low dose of pitocin to start contractions.  They were scared if they gave me too much I would go into labor quickly because of my previous history. :)  I started feeling contractions, but they didn't bother me at all.  So we basically sat around all morning watching tv and movies.  Steve took lots of pictures of me in my fabulous hospital gown.

Gradually they increased the pitocin and the contractions got more painful.  I started the day not sure if I wanted an epidural or not.  I figured I'd done natural childbirth once, I could do it again.  But I was curious to know what the epidural felt like and how different it would be.  Although my doctor and the nurses thought I would have the baby before noon, 12:00 came and went and I was still pregnant.  The contractions started to get very painful and I was squeezing Steve's hand through them.  After about an hour of pain I decided I had served my time and I was ready for an epidural!  I didn't feel like I was making much progress and I was very anxious to have this baby!  So I got the shot and they told me the next contraction would be shorter.  It wasn't.  They asked if the next one was less painful.  It wasn't.  They said to give it 10 minutes.  I did and they felt exactly the same.  They said there was one explanation for that....I had dilated from a 5 to a 9 in those 10 minutes and the drugs couldn't keep up.  Nice.  So they gave me another dose and finally my left side went numb.  However everything felt the same on my right side.  Nice.  By this time I was a 10 and the doctor was ready to deliver.  I finally started to feel the contractions lessen right before it was time to push.  It wasn't pain-free, but it was a night and day difference from natural childbirth.  I didn't even feel like it was really happening since it seemed so easy in comparison.  After about 10 minutes of pushing she was out.  Olive was facing up instead of down, so she got her face bruised by pushing against my pelvic bone.  The marks are supposed to gradually fade.  The epidural had made me really tired, but as soon as she was born I became more alert and of course started crying.  With Hannah I was too stunned by the pain to really enjoy the moment.  I was also shaking uncontrollably with her because of all of the natural childbirth hormones.  It was neat to have a different birth experience this time and really be able to enjoy it.  Although the worst thing about the epidural was it took about 4 hours to move my left leg!

We named her Olive for my maternal grandmother- Olive Arlene Brown.  She passed away a few years ago and it makes me sad that my Olive will never know her namesake.  I hope my Olive will inherit her great-grandmother's creativity and playfulness.  Grandma liked writing poetry, designing Barbie dresses for her daughters, and playing games with her grandkids.  She really liked Steve and was very excited for our wedding.  I know she would have loved to see us start a family.

Elizabeth doesn't have special meaning to us.  We just thought it went really well with Olive.  I also like that it is more of a traditional name, just in case she doesn't like the uniqueness of Olive.