The Grand Entrance of Ms. Elsa Clare

Dear Blog-readers, family, and friends: I'm going to talk about Elsa's birth. I've been trying to figure out a way to do that without injecting details about my physical self that I'd rather keep to myself and, in a lovely turn of events, Ms. Elsa was born on a big football weekend. Forgive the extended sports metaphors here. Football lovers, please enjoy. Others, please do your best to keep up.

On November 17th, I went to my routine OB appointment. After discussing my size, history, and physical condition with my OB, we scheduled an induction for the Friday after Thanksgiving (also known as CU vs. NE day, hence the extended football discussion). I would check in at 7 pm for an induction. On Friday night we would use cervical ripening drugs - followed on Saturday morning by pitocin. This was quite similar to the strategy we used in Carter's induction. This photograph is one of my last belly pictures - taken the afternoon of 11/26. Please note the overall largesse of the belly. Because this was the evening of the Old Littleton tree lighting ceremony, I sent my family downtown to watch it while I spent a last few quiet moments at home. I checked in to the hospital at 7 pm and by 8:30 the family was ready to come and say hello and I was just getting my first dose of medication: 50mcg of oral cytotec. Standard protocal would be to administer 3 doses of the medication throughout the night. My nurse checked me and let me know that I was still backed into my opponent's red zone and facing a very strong defensive line. And sadly for us, we also had the refs from the A&M game at play, so my midnight and 4 a.m. medication doses were met with flags. 15 yard penalty. No more meds. I threw my headset and received a personal foul.

Despite a lack of further medication, I contracted regularly - and strongly - throughout the evening. Unfortunately for me, the strong defensive line held - and my further checks at midnight and 4 a.m. revealed absolutely no running OR passing yards on the field. We were absolutely stuck. By 7 a.m. we had a small glimmer of hope -- the fluids I'd been getting were calming my body enough that I could receive pitocin to help augment labor. The other good news? Some small amount of movement on the field. Still, I felt like slinking into the locker rooms and giving everyone a good Pelini-style screamfest, erm, I mean "pep talk".

At 9 a.m. my doctor visited to check me - and broke my water. He let me know we were at about the 35 yard line and the defensive line was weakening a bit, but was still quite daunting.

By 11, I was exhausted. I ordered the epidural - and because I was a third-time mom, I got to cut in line and get it as soon as possible. By about 12:30 I was resting and comfortably numb from the waist down. The nurse came in again to check me about an hour later and let me know we were at the 40 yard line and the opposing team had suffered injuries requiring the 2nd string replacements for Defensive End and Cornerback. Finally! We were getting somewhere!

And then! THEN! Finally a good run for us - 2:15 rolled around and the defensive line was feeling significant pressure. We were at the 50 and we weren't stopping. By 3 we were at the 70 - and by 3:15 we were staring down one or two plays to the end zone. By 3:17 we were watching that sweet final pass sail into the end zone.

And then? This:
Although, to be fair, she was much messier and way more disgusting than she is in this photograph. Sweet little Elsa Clare was born at 3:25 after 18 hours of labor (also known as the longest single football play in sweet blogger metaphor history) and 5 minutes of pushing.