Being born

Maggie woke up on the morning of Dec. 30th and said, "I think my water has broke." I was kind of nervous. The baby wasn't due for another 3 and half weeks. We called the midwife and she said, "No hurry, but go the the hospital." We ate breakfast, packed our bags, and cleaned the house a little. Then we took a cab to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in midtown Manhattan. Here's Maggie waiting to go into labor.




By about 4 pm that afternoon she hadn't gone into active labor so they gave her pitocin to start the contractions. Maggie started feeling it strongly by about 8pm. Usually these induced contractions are more painful but she toughed it out without any painkillers until finally little Elsie was born at 2:30 AM on New Years Eve! Here's one of the first photos of her. We skipped over the really slimy ones.



We didn't come up with her name until the next day. It was going to be "Theo" or "Asayo". Maggie had suggested "Elsie" months ago, but back then I wasn't convinced. Then, during the labor that name popped back into my head. We both liked it now. Here's the proud parents holding Elsie for the first time.




After that we all went to sleep.