The Bump arrives

Ok so it’s been a long time since I lasted updated, and for that I apologise. As most of you know the bump finally arrived on 18 December 2006 at 18.08 PST. She was 7lbs and 4 oz and 19 inches long. She was around 3 weeks early as she decided that she wanted to come in time for Christmas.

The whole experience was strange. Jen’s waters broke at 4am and I leapt out of bed and was surprisingly awake for such an awful hour. We drove to the hospital and we both commented at how many people were up and about on a Monday morning. We got to the hospital and checked in (if that’s the correct term?) and then nothing. Not a thing. Oh Jen got the odd contraction but apart from that we just sat there, watched TV, played cards, walked. Jen wasn’t allowed any food so she continued to get grouchier and grouchier. Finally at 3.14pm everything kicked in and Jen’s contractions went from every 2 minutes to being on top of one another.

Elena Bethany Burr entered around 3 hours later looking very blue. I am man enough to admit that I cried during the birth, because I had never seen anyone in so much pain. The movies just don’t do justice the agony I felt watching my wife go through agony.

Ellie was later diagnosed with Jaundice and whilst her levels of this were high there seemed to be no problems so they sent us home on the Wednesday after. We went to the Dr’s and her jaundice levels were continuing to rise so the gave us a UV blanket (called a billiblanket) which Ellie had to be 24 hours a day. We then had to keep going to get blood work done, including a trip to the hospital on Christmas day (it was the only place open to do the test). Finally a week later we were given the all clear and so with Ellie’s levels normal we went to Yosemite to visit Jen’s parents.