A Letter to the Loved Ones

sent on 1/19/09 to friends and family

Hello dear friends and family:

Ian Alejandro Hindall-Wright entered this world on Saturday, January 17th at 1:57am. He weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 2oz and measured 21 inches long. I am still so completely stunned that I gave birth.

Labor was IN-TENSE. My body decided to skip the entire "early" labor stage where things sort of progress little by little to the hard stuff. No, I hit the ground running with the super hard contractions around 10:30pm, dilated to 7 inches by midnight, and pushed the big guy out 2 hours later. Overall- 3 1/2 hours of hard labor. I never begged and bargained for mercy more in my life. Crazy animal sounds came out of me and scared my family who stood vigil in the waiting room at the Center. Still, I wouldn't have done it any other way.

Altho it was a completely natural childbirth, I was given a labor inducer the day before called Cytotec. I was already a week and a day late, and the midwives at the Center don't fool around with late term babies. My cervix had not "ripened" at all and they determined that my body just would not go into labor on its own. Had I waited I would have put little Ian at risk and would have most likely ended with a Cesarean. So I took the Cytotec the day before (Friday) and hoped all would go well. By the time labor began, the drug had already worn off and done its job.

We headed home by 11am that morning after some amazing after-care at the Center. Recovery has been great and I credit it all to the absence of drugs and other medical intervention. However, I hemorraged right after birth so I did get some medical treatments post partem to stop the bleeding (pitosin both as IV and injection). It worked after 2 dosages and apparently all the blood scared the begeezus out of Jason and the others who happened to be there when it happened. It was pretty brutal but I was lucky and didn't have to go to the hospital.

The licesned nurse midwives and staff at the Birth Center were completely amazing. Professional, experienced, and so nurturing. It was an incredibly beautiful experience. Would I do it again? Um, ask me later. But if I HAD to do it again, I wouldn't do it any other way!

Being at home with the little guy is just heaven for me and Jason. We are enjoying (almost) every minute and are grateful that Ian is a good sleeper. (Let's see how long that lasts!) He's picking up his nursing skills and starting to eat well. He will go for his first pediatrician Well Baby visit tomorrow morning (Monday) with Pops. I'm on strict bed rest until Tuesday morning at the earliest, then house rest until at least the end of the week.One of the midwives made a home visit today and examined Ian. She said he looked super - healthy and no jaudice at all (which apparently is pretty common right after birth). She gave us some pointers on nursing and told us how proud she was of us.

As for visitations, we are doing them little by little throughout the week. I will be returning calls personally very soon and want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all the emails, calls and messages. None have gone unnoticed and rest assured that I've cherished each one.

Lots of Love,
Stephanie

P.S. Some of you already got these updates from my cousin, to whom we are so grateful for being our Call Tree Guru. Thanks Jenn!