Welcome Elliott Poe!

She's here! She's here! We officially welcomed our sweet Elliott Poe Morgan last Tuesday, May 1 at 12:18 pm. She was 6lbs 11oz, healthy with lots of dirty blonde hair and the cutest chunky face. 

We have so much love for this girl already, and it's been so sweet to see our family embrace her. Despite the exhaustion and still learning how to take care of a baby, we all find ourselves fighting to hold her and staying up to just stare at her. 

I've gotten lots of questions about how my labor went so I thought I'd share her birth story here while it's all still fresh in my head. This was also my first time going through all our hospital photos, and it was so exciting to relive everything again. 

Birth Story

All of my siblings and I delivered early after my mom's water breaking. Since I've had a very similar pregnancy to hers' I was definitely prepared for my water to break and her to arrive a little early (her original due date was May 9). By the time 37 weeks rolled around I was DEFINITELY ready for her to make her debut - my feet were so swollen, my back was aching, and I wasn't getting much sleep at night. My doctor gave me a membrane sweep that week to start moving things along.

By 38 weeks I was trying out all those foods that are supposed to induce labor (lots of pineapple juice, date bars, and raspberry tea). They brought on a few small contractions, but nothing consistent. The Sunday before baby E arrived my sister came over to try out some henna on my belly for some cute instagram photos. Needless to say - leave the henna to the professionals haha. We quit early and wiped it off immediately, but since my skin was so stretched out the henna dye stuck on there very well. I had feeling I was going to have to go to the hospital with this half-done, rough looking mandela on my stomach haha. 

The next night Eric and I went to play trivia as we'd been doing the last few months of my pregnancy. We did have our usual team members, and gave ourselves the new team name of "Last Night Out". Do you think we jinxed ourselves? haha. That night I started having slightly stronger contractions as I went to bed, and around 1am I heard the "pop!" that comes along with your water breaking. Eric was so nervous as we called the doctor and was pacing around the room. I on the other hand was ready to go meet this girl! I called my mom, tried to eat some cereal, and we started packing up our things to go. 

Once we were all checked in and in the delivery room, time went by incredibly fast. My mom joined Eric and I and we watched a few movies while my contractions progressed. I made it about 5 hours before I was in tears and called out for my epidural. Getting the epidural was definitely a little scary. I have slight scoliosis, so the anesthesiologist kept having to rethread it through until it was in the right spot (but until then I kept getting a zinging pain down my left side - youch!) 

When the epidural kicked in, things were SO much smoother. It definitely wasn't fun needing help to change positions in bed, but at least I couldn't feel any pain! After another 5 hours I'd gone from 4cm dialeted to being ready to push!

Pushing was definitely harder than I had expected, and required so much endurance. My mom and Eric were on both sides of me the entire time helping me along. My delivery nurses also ended up bringing out a huge mirror to help me - which I'd originally thought would be weird and scary, but it was not at all. It definitely helped provide some much needed motivation during the hour and a half we pushed!

I forgot to mention that this entire time I hadn't seen my delivery doctor. I thankfully had some really amazing delivery nurses and family support, but I can see now why some women may want to consider having a doula so they'd have someone there the entire time to coach them through. My nurses essentially delivered Elliott until right before she was going to pop out - then they ran and got the doctor and she was out! She was  She was immediately put on my chest and we all teared up, it was the best moment. 

The next few days in the hospital were kind of a surreal whirlwind. I was under the impression that I'd want to stay in the hospital for as long as possible since we didn't know what we were doing - but I couldn't wait to get home! We were up all night the first night (make that 48 hours up since we didn't go to bed the night before) with a screaming babe as we tried to figure things out. Not to mention nurses, doctors, and hospital staff come into the room every 1-2 hours to do something. Add in visitors and there is no time for rest. Thankfully we were just there for 48 hours. 

One week later we've finally started to settle into a good routine and couldn't love this girl any more. I'm so excited to share more of her with you all as she grows <3