Anneliese Joan

A week ago Saturday, June 14th at 9:33am we welcomed our adorable little girl Anneliese Joan into the world!
It was a quick, crazy (or so it seemed to me) labor and delivery starting at 6:00am with the first hard contraction. I say hard because I had been having braxton hicks since week 30, with them picking up quite a bit two days before. All of us (Andrew's mom and sister where here already for the delivery) thought for sure we'd be heading to the hospital Thursday evening, as contractions were as close as 6-8 minutes apart for several hours but they didn't hurt too bad, just really tight. We really enjoyed the day together in Yaletown Vancouver, went to bed that night anticipating the arrival but obviously nothing happened (except for my sisters arriving safely to join in the waiting game).

Our fun day out on Thursday, Andrew bought balloons for the kids and Malachi let his go right off the bat, we joked that that meant we were having a girl since the pink balloon was the only one left...little did we know...

Friday was VERY low key, so much so I was getting kinda annoyed since we had a house full of people waiting and after thinking the night before things were going to happen, it was a disappointment to go a whole day with no action. But then woke up to contractions with pain in my back Saturday morning. I woke Andrew up at 6:30, told him to take a quick shower, as they were getting closer and harder by the minute. Short time later they were 1.5-2 minutes apart, Labor & Delivery told us to come on in even though we hadn't been contracting for too long. By 7:45 we were on our way...by the grace of God (thank you for everyone's prayers regarding this part of my delivery) there was NO traffic (took about 15 minutes whereas it could have taken about an hour) and the drive was as smooth as it could be while having contractions every couple of minutes.

Jamie captured this moment, I was in the middle of a contraction.

We arrived at St Paul's hospital, was admitted at 8:22 (if your keeping track of the timeline you may wonder what took so long...well lets just say it took a while to walk to the maternity unit while having to stop for contractions. And for those who want all sorts of details, I was throwing up at the front desk while being admitted...probably in transition already) Our sweet nurse checked me and we were only 5 cm dialated. I was discouraged because contractions were already really really tough and we were only 5cm....the same that we were when we arrived at the hospital for Malachi and for him we labored for another 9 hours before he was delivered. I definetly had my doubts as to if I would be able to handle this labor and delivery because of how hard the contractions were but I kept telling myself that getting in the tub would make everything better. Finally we got to our room and started filling up the tub. While the water was still warming up, my water broke and I had the urge to push. Luckily the nurse heard me say that, we waited for one more contraction to see if that feeling continued, and it did. So we got back to the bed, she checked me and I was 7cm dialated, the very next contraction I was 10! They called in the backup doctor as my doctor wouldn't have time to get there. I started pushing with the next contraction and the baby's heartrate dropped by half...there was urgency in everyone's voices but after 2 (I think, I don't remember exactly) pushes Anneliese was in my arms, at 9:33am. Of course we didn't know it was Anneliese, everything happened so fast that Andrew and I didn't even think to look to see who were were holding until someone asked. Andrew looked and announced we had a daughter!

Everything happened so fast but of course Andrew was my hero...he kept calm and was the only support that could help me through it all, besides God's grace.

First bath

Anneliese Joan Schaal
8 lbs 14 oz, 21 inches long