{"id":551,"date":"2007-04-15T01:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-15T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/wordpress\/?p=551"},"modified":"2007-04-15T01:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-15T01:45:00","slug":"meeting-my-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/2007\/04\/15\/meeting-my-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"meeting my daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was fun!<\/p>\n

When I woke up, Amber told me not to get my hopes up, but that she was having contractions every 10-15 minutes. We read up on false labour and deduced that this is what was happening. Sure enough, but 8 AM, things had subsided. I worked at the office for part of the day, went to the bank. <\/p>\n

I got home at 4:30 to take my family to the hairdresser where Blaise would get his 3rd haircut of his life. He behaved very well. My ulterior motive though was to get Amber out of the house so her friends could decorate for a baby shower. Amber’s contractions had started up again at 3 PM. The haircut lasted 10 minutes. I was supposed to keep Amber away until 6 PM. I said we should take Blaise out for ice cream as this could be his last day being an only child. The ice cream parlour was closed, so I just drove around Tactic for 15 minutes until we got to Do\u00f1a Lucia’s bakery. We bought some pastries and walked around the block. Amber decided it was time to tell her midwife about the contractions and I was game for a pit stop at Do\u00f1a Marta’s for a checkup as I still had to stall for 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

Do\u00f1a Marta agreed to meet us at our house.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A gang of women with gift bags descended upon our house as Amber had contractions every 10 minutes. They ate snacks and desserts. They played games. Amber opened gifts. I stayed in my office and started a movie and put Blaise to bed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An hour after the party left, Amber told me the contractions were much stronger. I started timing them with my iPod stopwatch, which also records the time the timer was used which gave us intervals for the contractions: Every 2-6 minutes for 45-90 seconds. Amber is tough. I had to persuade her that this was when the midwife comes over and then she should start pushing shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Amber gave in. Finally. I went and picked up Do\u00f1a Marta and Mariah and upon first examination, Amber was dilated to about 8 cm which was sufficient according to the midwife because the baby’s head wasn’t very big. <\/p>\n

So then it was a RUSH. We had to heat water on the stove for the pool. Six big pots of water. By the time the water was at a desirable level and temperature, the midwife had broken the water and Amber was ready to push. She got into the pool just after 11 PM. I was busy setting up the video camera, preparing stuff for the baby, playing games on my iPod (just kidding), and encouraging Amber.<\/p>\n

Then there she was! 11:15 PM. I didn’t get to see her appear, but moments later I was able to see her. Do\u00f1a Marta’s instruments fell into the pool and so with Mariah’s help, we hurriedly disinfected them and I went and cut the little one’s umbilical cord. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We managed to get Amber and the baby dry, dressed and resting in our bedroom. We breathed for a bit together and we named the sweet girl: Acadia Juliette Robichaud. Then I drove Do\u00f1a Marta and Se\u00f1o Mariah home at around 12:15 AM.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I got back, I was able to spend a little time with my daughter. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We prayed and then went to sleep, a family of 4.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This morning was very exciting too. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I set up the video camera on a tripod and we introduced Blaise to his new sister. He squealed and exclaimed over and over.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We sat together on the couch and I let him hold his baby sister<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

and kiss his baby sister. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The midwife didn’t laugh when I joked about feeding the placenta to the stray dogs. So this morning I planted it in our backyard underneath our orange tree.<\/p>\n

I wish to thank and acknowledge all the well wishers from the phone calls and visits to the 30 emails we received. I wish to acknowledge all the wonderful women who brought me treats last night at the shower (I have jello to last me a couple weeks!) and bless with with so many great baby things. I also wish to acknowledge Mariah’s huge help last night and also her help this morning – she cleaned our house while we zoned. I also wish to acknowledge Walter and Ruth, our wonderful neighbours, who cared for Blaise this morning and made us a sumptuous meal for lunch (we had enough leftovers for supper).<\/p>\n

Congratulations to all Acadia’s grandparents, aunties, and uncle Dean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was fun! When I woke up, Amber told me not to get my hopes up, but that she was having contractions every 10-15 minutes. We read up on false labour and deduced that this is what was happening. Sure enough, but 8 AM, things had subsided. I worked at the office for part of … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,16,30],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-admin","4":"post-551","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-family","9":"category-fatherhood","10":"category-guatemala","11":"category-zr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}