Isabelle

Our new little one has finally arrived!

Isabelle Amelie Colton arrived on 17 December 2007 at 8:45 p.m. The following is all the pertinent information - weight: 3.495 kgs or 7.69 lbs; length: 52 ccs or 20.47 inches; other: She has 10 fingers, 10 toes and the correct amounts of every other body part. She looks healthy, is very aware of her surroundings, is pleasant and beautiful.

Our day began at 8:05 a.m. when we dropped Maddie at ASL and continued by taxi to Portland hospital. We were met at Portland's main entrance by a porter, who took Ally's luggage and escorted us to our delivery suite on the 7th floor.

The induction began around 9:00 a.m. We spent most of the morning on our feet, as we were told that a combination of medication and walking would help progress the labour. As Portland is not a big hospital, we did most of our walking outside, which was cold. However, it did give us the chance to do some shopping on Marlebone High Street and to drop by Starbucks for a caramel hot chocolate!

Room service brought us our lunch, which we selected from the hospital's room serice menu, around 12:30. The food throughout our stay was quite tasty! As we were waiting for the doctor to arrive and check Ally's progress, we stayed in the delivery suite after lunch. Ally did a lot of pacing.

The doctor broke Ally's water around 3:15 p.m., which accelerated Ally's contractions. Ally was given her epidural soon afterwards. From that point onwards, Ally's midwife was very attentive, basically remaining with us in our delivery suite until Isabelle was born.

Around 6:15 p.m., Ally was given pitocin to further accelerate her labour. It worked; unfortunately, her epidural stopped working at about the same time. For around 1.5 hours, Ally could feel every pitocin-enhanced contraction; still, I don't think I ever heard her cry out (that's how strong my wife is). Around 8:00 p.m., they got Ally's epidural working again, and the doctor arrived to deliver the baby. Once the doctor got himself sorted, Ally pushed about a dozen times and...

...Isabelle was born at 8:45 p.m.

We spent the night in the hospital. After breakfast, Isabelle's first bath...

...and all the necessary examinations, we checked out of Portland and arrived home around 11:30 a.m. Maddie came home from school at 2:30 and has been taking care of Isabelle ever since.



Enjoy these other pictures! We'll try to post more in a couple of days.