Disclaimer: The following account is that of a man. It could be terribly fact-oriented and insensitive. If so, Ellie, I plead for your forgiveness in advance.


Here's how it all went down. At the doctor's appointment on Monday Ellie was told to schedule an induction for Wednesday. Well, that happened to be April 15th and nobody wants the curse of being born on that day. Besides, I was working on an audit in Salt Lake through the end of the week. So he told us to call the hospital on Friday after 5. When 5 o'clock came, however, they were busy and told us to wait for their call. Ours would be the 10th baby delivered during the 12 hour shift. They called a little after 7 and the wheels were set in motion. My parents came over to watch the girlies for us. With my Dad's help, I gave Ellie a blessing and we were on our way (with every moment being well documented by my Dad's Nikon).



The reason that Dr. Peterson wanted to induce Ellie is because she needs antibiotics for strep B in her for at least four hours before the baby can be born. Plus, once Ellie's water breaks it is always a sprint to the finish.



They started Ellie on antibiotics at about 9:50. Then got the Oxytocin going an hour later. Ellie incredibly went through all of Averie's labor without an epidural. I still feel a little guilty about that. The argument went something like this. "Ellie, we don't have any health insurance. This epidural is going to cost over $400 and it's only going to help for an hour. That's a pretty high hourly rate. You don't think that's really necessary, do you?" Sometimes the accountant in me wins out over the compassionate, loving husband. Anyway, I wasn't about to try that one again (even though we amazingly didn't have maternity coverage again). You'd think we'd learn after a time or two... or three. This time the epidural was administered as soon as Ellie started feeling discomfort. Ellie said that getting the epidural was the worst part of labor.



Dr. Peterson hung out with us for about an hour. We are lucky to have a doctor who spends so much personal time with us. He has our best interest in mind and takes great care of us. After he left we both napped for a little while. At 1:50 we were in the clear to have the baby. Ellie was dialated to a 4 plus. At 2:30 she was a 5 plus and the Doc decided the time had come to get down to business. He broke her water and about 1 hour later she was complete. She pushed for 10 or 15 minutes and we had Allen girl #4 in our arms. Everything went just a smoothly as we could have hoped.

Analiese Sarah Allen was born at 3:43 am on Saturday, April 18, 2009. She was 6 lbs 11 oz and 19 in long.

We debated and debated about the name, but in the end we didn't have much choice. After naming the first three with A names she would be hopelessly scarred if we hadn't followed suit. Sarah is after my Grandma Baird. All four girls were named after their wonderful great grandmothers.

Analiese is now sleeping like an angel next to me. She is so beautiful and so tiny. I feel so blessed to have her. I love her.