I’ve always said that I thought Katie was made to be a mom, and this past week has confirmed my suspicion. It’s strange to me that being a mom has to begin with such a shocking event as a birth—there’s no getting your feet wet or getting used to the water. Usually it takes Katie a long time to get into a cold swimming pool, but at least in this case, the sink-or-swim method paid off! One week ago Katie gave birth to Laura Madeleine Holst. She was born at 6:20 AM at L’Hôpital Cantonal de Fribourg in Fribourg, Switzerland. She weighed between 3.0 and 3.3 kg (6 lb 10 oz and 7 lbs 4 oz—the scale was messed up!) and was 47 cm (18 ½ inches) long.
Laura Madeleine Holst
She came right on time to share Katie’s birthday with her on the 30th of October! Yes…I was planning well in advance this year for Katie's birthday gift! Below, I’ve recounted the whole story for you. I know that most are not interested in all of the details, but I figure that some are and I’m quite proud of it myself; therefore I feel that the waste of extra ones and zeros is well worth it. But I won’t be offended to find that you just scrolled down to look at all the pictures instead of reading the whole story.
I suppose that the story has to begin with the night before. We knew that it was likely to be the last night with just the two of us for the rest of our lives because my mom and grandma arrived the next day and by the time that all if our visitors left, we would have a little girl to add to our family. It wasn’t a bad thing at all, but it was quite profound to think about the change that we were about to experience. We spent the evening by going out to dinner at Katie’s favorite Italian restaurant downtown Fribourg and then we put together the glider rocking chair that I got Katie for her birthday in anticipation of little Laura. It was a fun evening and well spent.
Katie Enjoying her new glider rocking chair
I’d been a little bit sick and have a large and pressing project going on at work now, so I needed to get to bed on time and had my alarm set quite early the next morning to try to get some things done so I would be more free when my family arrived. This is an important piece of information in understanding my actions in the next part of the story.
You see, Katie came in to wake me up at about 1:30 am. She was coming to tell me that her water had broken. Well, I didn’t believe her. I am quite a hard sleeper and often it takes Katie some effort to actually wake me up. And my near-lifeless body—even my brain—has the ability to operate on its own in an erratic fashion until my consciousness returns. I thought for sure that my alarm had been going off for the last 10 minutes (perhaps I’d even hit the “snooze” button several times already) and that she was trying to get me up. And obviously a good way to wake me up was to tell me something surprising like that her water had broken. Well, I wasn’t falling for it, and had smoothly coaxed her into leaving me alone for a few more minutes. Believe me, my train of thought made perfect sense at the time—in reality it had completely jumped its tracks and was steaming off through a pleasant dream in La-La Land. A few minutes later, Katie came running back in and this time she managed to convince me to open my eyes a little bit. I still didn’t believe her until I looked at her and saw that she had no pants on and a towel in between her legs. At this point, I figured that I would at least humor her since she had gone to the trouble to work up such an elaborate joke. I don’t know when the synapses in my brain actually allowed the thought to pass, but it was well after I was up and walking around and looking at the clock which for some reason said 1:44 AM instead of 5:44 AM when I was supposed to wake up.
Too Early!
Even after I knew it to be a reality, my brain must not have been in high-gear because I felt that I should have time to shave and take a leisurely shower (she wouldn’t want me to meet our daughter without being really clean would she?)—and even spend a few minutes figuring out what to wear.
Katie getting ready to go to the hospital
Well, we finally made it to the hospital after calling our parents to let them know we were on our way. We had to go to the Emergency Room because that’s the only entry after hours to our little hospital. They didn’t seem too concerned and let us go alone to the maternity floor. As far as we knew, there were only 3 people in the entire hospital—the two guards and the mid-wife that we met when we got to our destination.
Now begins the fun part—which I will abbreviate for the sake of decency. We got to a pre-labor room and the mid-wife hooked Katie up to the monitors to listen to Little Girl’s heartbeat and monitor the contractions. She put an IV in her (standard, in case they need to immediately put her under for a C-section) and took some blood. And by the time she got around to checking Katie’s dilation, she was already at 6 cm (2.5 in.)—which surprised the mid-wife. I went to move the car from the Emergency Room curb (got a bit lost on the way) while Katie went straight to the delivery room. Katie decided to labor a bit in the huge bath-tub in the delivery room since we expected to have a number of hours of labor. But about 10 minutes after getting in the bath, she had a really strong contraction with the urge to push. But the mid-wife had said that she shouldn’t push until she was fully dilated. The mid-wife wasn’t even there at the time so I was running around frantically trying to find the little orange button with a picture of a mid-wife on it. By the time the mid-wife got there, it was over, but upon checking Katie again, she found that she was fully dilated already at 10 cm (4 in.)—only an hour after getting to the hospital. She said that we needed to decide immediately whether or not we would deliver in the bathtub, because we might not be able to get Katie out for much longer. Katie decided to take the more traditional route of the delivery bed. In hindsight, it might have been better to stay in the tub because as soon as she got out, the strong contractions stopped—who knows though.
Here's our delivery room with a jacuzzi and mood-lighting
For the next two hours, we struggled to learn how to push, breathe, and hold each others’ hands to make it through. It pretty quickly progressed at first, but then slowed before the crowning. And don’t believe Katie’s story if you ever hear it from her—she has almost completely forgotten what happened already J. Anyway, the short version is that the doctor started to get a bit anxious because it was taking so long from full dilation, so he mentioned using a vacuum to assist, and as soon as he said that I’ve never seen Katie anything like that in my life, but she was bound and determined that the baby was coming out then, and so she pushed (I’ll spare the details), and there was Laura’s little head (I don’t really understand why God made our heads round instead of long and thin), and Katie had no clue what was happening and didn’t even know the head was out but we got her to calm down enough to push once more and then, at 6:20 AM, there was a beautiful, slimy, little, delicate baby girl with blue feet, gurgling on Katie’s chest looking as calm as can be just blinking and looking around with her eyes. I bet you’re glad it was only the short version!
While Katie was recovering a little bit, I got to cut the umbilical cord and take her to get measured. Her lungs definitely worked by that time and she let us know it—poor little thing!
Laura Mad getting her first check-up!
Then came probably the worst part—the stitching. I don’t think there was anything really bad or abnormal about it at all, but we weren’t expecting it and it was not fun. I’ll spare any more details of that. At the end Katie had a little faint while walking to the toilet, but she’s no worse for the wear. And as quickly as it began, it was over and we had beautiful little Laura Madeleine with hardly enough energy to open her eyes. And they rolled Katie down to a normal hospital room while I went to make a few phone calls.
Besides being a perfect birthday gift for Katie, Laura was quite a surprise for my mom and grandma who arrived it Switzerland about 30 minutes after Laura. They got on the plane before Katie went into Labor and by the time they got off the plane, she was here! They didn’t find out until a few hours later when they got off the train from Zurich to Fribourg and I greeted them saying, “I bet I didn’t get any more sleep than you guys last night!” They were very pleasantly surprised and happy that Laura was here. It had been a worry to all of us that little Laura might not arrive until it was time for them to go home, but she worked it out to spend as much time as possible with Grandma and Great-Grandma!
Visitors’ hours at the hospital weren’t until the afternoon and I could hardly keep my mom from jumping in the car to go up there early to meet Laura. But the time finally came, and we went to see them. It’s usually hard to stay awake the whole first day with the jet-lag and the long flight, but little Laura was a perfect distraction, and they had no trouble making it until bed-time without a nap (I must admit that I was fading pretty hard by the evening!).
Four generations of women in the family
Our next few days were spent trying to hurry the time along until the 2pm start of visiting hours and then hanging out with the girls at the hospital until close to bed time. Katie and Laura got to know each other and start to figure out how to manage their lives together. Everything started off really well with all of the tests that they ran and the beginning of breastfeeding and such, but Katie was pretty run down at the end of a few days in the hospital room with another mother and screaming child and lot’s of visitors.
Finally, after 3 ½ long days in the hospital, they got to come home. We filled out all of our paperwork to get Laura’s birth certificate and loaded up on all of the equipment, supplies, and flowers that we received in the hospital and took them out to the car on a cold, rainy, windy Monday afternoon.
Our first family photo!
We even celebrated Laura's first Halloween with a hat from Cristina!
Lot's of this at the Hospital
Finally, after 3 ½ long days in the hospital, they got to come home. We filled out all of our paperwork to get Laura’s birth certificate and loaded up on all of the equipment, supplies, and flowers that we received in the hospital and took them out to the car on a cold, rainy, windy Monday afternoon.
Grandma made Laura a beautiful dress for her trip home from the hospital
First trip in the car-seat!
Now that we’re back at home, things are only beginning to really sink in for me. I’ve had it pretty easy so far with all the help we’ve had from my mom and grandma. Laura has hardly kept me awake at night at all (not quite the same for Katie). It still feels a little bit like we just have visitors and we happen to be baby-sitting at the same time. But every time I just get to hold Laura and stare into her eyes or come close to falling asleep with her in my arms, it soaks in just a little bit more, and I realize that I’m definitely in love. It amazes me that I have the privilege of caring for such a beautiful and delicate little person and it bewilders me that someday she’ll be grown up and asking if she can take the car. But I’m happy to let that wait…in fact, the slower it goes, the better…
Tom and Laura hanging out at home
Don't grow up too fast, Laura!
