Elsa's First Days

Now that was one heck of an experience

December 24, 2008 will go down in my personal history as one of the most incredible days of my life. Sure it was Christmas Eve Day and as an overly reformed non-practicing Jew that means a day of looking at movie schedules because X-mas is only one day away. Not knowing what movie you'll be seeing on Christmas while the other 99% of people in the country are eating ham and filling living room floors with wrapping paper is just a disgrace to the 5000 years of history of the Jewish people.


This December 24th was a bit different of course because it was the day Elsa was born. I knew I was in for one heck of a day right from the get go. Before heading out to see the midwife at 8:30 in the morning, Sara decided to jump in the shower and I ran out to the car to put our bags in there just in case this was the big day. When I went back inside I heard the strangest noise coming from the bathroom - Sara was blow drying her hair. Yes, for those of you who really know Sara well, you'd be equally surprised by that sentence. Honestly, I don't think Sara has blow dried her hair since our wedding. That doesn't mean she's a slob or anything, it just means that she saves primping for significant occasions.


When we saw the midwife the conversation began as the 15 appointments before them had: How are you feeling? Have you noticed any swelling? Have you been having any headaches? Did you know that you're 6 centimeters dilated?


For those of you keeping pregnancy score at home 6cm is just 4cm away from 10cm which is the magic number for babies. Once a baby hears 10cm come out of anyones mouth, whether its the mother, the father, the doctor, the nurse, the midwife, whoever - they all yell bingo and want to be the first one out to get their "cords" checked.

By 10:00 Sara was admitted to the hospital and we had a strong suspicion that we weren't walking out of that joint without our little baby. By 10:30 we had submitted our birth plan, a document with our desires and wishes for the birth experience. Highlights from Elsa's birth plan were: safe delivery, no drugs if possible, Errol cuts the umbilical cord. Thankfully items one and three went very well, number two however was a bit interesting.

By 11:30 Sara's contractions went from a meandering 45 minutes apart to 20 minutes apart and quickly accelerated as her cervix continued to dial ate. The pain of childbirth comes in two stages they say. Stage one is the dilation of the cervix - 10cm isn't any small feat and is bound to hurt like heck. The second stage is the pushing stage when you push baby through that 10cm whole, again, not a pleasant thought from the male perspective.

As the pain increased Sara began to think that drugs might not be such a bad idea. At about 1:15 she started to ask for them, by 1:30 she pleaded for them and by 1:45 it was too late because she was fully dilated and needed to start pushing. Sara still doesn't believe me, but we did call for the anesthesiologist, they just couldn't get there in time.

Sara did an AMAZING job during the pushing stage. She listened to midwife, ignored me, and focused on getting the baby out. For those of you that thought I'd pass out for sure, I'm happy to let you know you were wrong. I did my best to help with process by holding Sara's left leg. It was an honorable assignment and I think it helped me stay focused. I actually never got queasy, the adrenaline was pumping too strong to let that happen.

After 20 minutes of pushing the baby's head was visible and 5 minutes later baby Elsa made her debut. I will never forget the moment she came out, her beautiful blue eyes popped wide open to take in the world, her skin flushed pink and her healthy lungs showed their strength with her first cry "BINGO!".

It's a Girl!!!!

Elsa Sophia Mazursky was eager to become part of this world and arrived 4 days early and in record time. She was born December 24th at 2:10pm and weighed in at 6 lbs 5 oz and was 18 1/2 inches long. She is cute as a button, has strawberry blond hair and blue eyes similiar to mom and long fingers and legs like her daddy.

We are all doing great. More pictures coming soon.

One week and counting

Baby Mazursky is due in one week and by all accounts we are ready for the arrival. As you can see in the picture, Sara's torso is running out of room and we are fearfull she may explode at any given minute. The good news is that Sara is "making progress" according to the midwife, for those of you novices out there it means she is begining to dialate and apparently everything is moving into position or something like that. Granted, she also said it can be 2 hours or 2 weeks so really "progress" is a relative term. But it did make Sara happy to hear that she won't be pregnant until spring which is how she feels right now.

We are both pretty sure Errol can now find his way to the hospital, only after about 20 visits over the last 9 months, but thankfully our good friends Rose and Robbie have graciously agreed to answer the phone in the middle of the night to give directions in the event Errol gets lost on the way.

And with only days to spare we finally found a peditrician that we like. Oh, and the hospital bag is partially packed..

Stay tuned, next posting will hopefully be an introduction! Happy holidays to everyone!

37 Weeks and a Place to Sleep

We have finally hit the downhill stretch of the pregnancy road...Baby Mazursky is full term and can come at any point right now. Although Errol isn't quite ready for the arrival, I am! We have the nursery nearly complete, our Fuzzi Buns diapers have arrived, we have clothes and all the other "necesseties", now all we need it is the baby! Oh...and I should probably pack my bag one of these days too...