Our daughter Helen was born yesterday morning at home, at 3:52 a.m., and we're all very happy. :-) We're still working on a middle name (which happily does NOT have to follow any of the "rules"!) and I enjoyed reading all the suggestions, especially as many of them are names that we have already used and/or considered! LOL (Anneliese is one of my favorite names, incidentally, but my husband vetoed that many, many years ago, before we had any children, so I named a doll that!)

The membranes ruptured at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday (September 4th), so we got everything organized, distributed the children, etc., and....waited. It was a very long, very boring day!! Occasional contractions, but nothing any stronger than in the last several weeks. The midwife came at 7:30, left again, came again at 1:00, left again, came again around 6:30 p.m., left again...(At the third visit we talked about what the procedure would be if nothing significant was happening by the next morning, because I would have then had to go to the hospital to be induced.) Around 10:00 we went to bed, but I couldn't sleep and was keeping my husband awake, so I got up again and went into the living room and did Sudokus and read the newspaper and wandered around. Around 1:00 a.m. (September 5th, Helen's actual due date) contractions finally started getting regular and a little stronger, around 2:00 they started getting much stronger and at 2:15 I woke up my husband and called the midwife, who arrived at 2:40, by which time I was 4 centimeters dilated. All the children have been born within two hours (at the most) from four centimeters, so I was much encouraged, but was still surprised at 3:30 when the midwife told my husband to put the towels in the oven to warm them--I couldn't imagine it could be THAT soon! No idea what time anything was after that, but I really only had one long contraction during which I pushed I think three times, and Helen was there. (Poor baby--the first words I said to her were, "So you ARE a girl--what's your name?!" Neither my husband nor I got our respective first choice on her name, but we compromised on our second choice, which was at least the same name. :-) ) Her umbilical cord was rather short and stopped pulsing very soon, my husband cut it, and Helen nursed for quite awhile before she was weighed. So who knows what her actual birth weight was, but officially, it was 4020 grams (8 pounds 14 ounces), and she measured 52 centimeters (20 1/2 inches) and her head was 37 centimeters (14 1/2 inches) around. She had all of her fingers and toes and earlobes and other important parts, and all systems are functioning well, top and bottom. :-) She also was apparently born knowing that she has four older, loud siblings, because she was definitely by far the loudest at birth!

We got the older children back in the morning (the girls at 8:30, the boys about half an hour later) and took lots of photos--they were all very excited. The friend who had the boys stayed for breakfast, and just after she left, another friend came, who after an hour or so took the four older children to the playground for a couple of hours so that we could sleep. My husband took her to the train station and went to playgroup with the other children in the afternoon and I wrote lots of e-mails (and tried to post here, but for some reason, couldn't get in) and enjoyed the calm. (Oh, and the midwife came during that time, too, to check on us, and will be here this afternoon, too.) Helen slept most of yesterday but not much of last night, doesn't like having her diaper changed, but happily loves the sling, where she's been most of today so far.

And what they say about the after-pains being stronger with each birth...it's true. And they go on longer than the contractions during labor. Other than that, everything is great and we're very happy. :-)

Oh, and in honor of the grand occasion...I tried to figure out how to insert a photo, but without success...