The Birthing Story. New photos below.

Written by Corbin

THE NEWS
With unexpected pleasure, we announce the birth of our beautiful Indie Kalea Thomander! The baby's due date was set for August 27th; however, Indie changed the plans and came 3.5 weeks early at 36.5 weeks!

THE FACTS
Indie was born on August 4th, 2008 (08-04-08) at 6:53 PM Hawaiian Standard Time in Castle Hospital (Kailua, Hawaii). She measured in at 19 inches long and a hefty pre-term weight of 6 pounds, 5 ounces. Meg (Knudsen) Thomander delivered the baby in less than 5 minutes of easy pushing (9 pushes)! Both Indie and Meg are doing great. The whole experience has been thrilling. Let me explain how it began...

THE PHOTOS
If you want to skip the story and cut straight to the photos, see above and below.

THE STORY
This week was going to be a big one. Until last week, Meg worked part-time with a 7 year-old boy with autism. Being as responsible as she is, Meg turned over her job leaving a full month left to prepare for the baby. Not only that, but Meg planned to complete all of the remaining tasks this week to allow ample time for the baby to come. Very wise until...Meg was unexpectedly interrupted at 2 AM Monday morning with some cramping. The cramping increased throughout the morning keeping Meg from sleeping. At 6 AM, Meg woke me up saying that she was having contractions every 2 minutes. She assured both of us that this couldn't be labor, nonetheless, I got out a pad of post-its and pen and started tracking the contractions.

At 7 AM, I took Meg out to walk around our neighborhood (in Hauula, Hawaii) to see if the supposed "contractions" would stop. After 20 minutes of walking there was no change. Each contraction was taking Meg's breath away for 15-30 seconds, every 2-3 minutes. At this point we still didn't think that this was labor. Consequently, we thought that it was silly that we were using the breathing techniques that were taught to us in birthing class. Meg was definitely in denial. After-all, how could she be in labor? She still had 3.5 weeks to go. Plus, the next day she had a professional maternity shoot scheduled with Mark Lee, a doctor's appointment in the afternoon, and a tour of Castle Hospital in the evening. Needless to say, we didn't make it to the photo shoot or the doctor's appointment. But we were able to attend the tour of the hospital, only one day early and with VIP treatment.

At 7:30 AM, I called Dr. Shimizu, explained Meg's contractions, and asked what we should do. She said, "I won't be in to the Kahuku clinic until 9 AM, so go straight to the hospital. We need to stop this baby from coming too early." For some reason I only heard the part that she wouldn't be in until 9 AM and not the part about stopping the labor. We calculated that by the time we packed and drove to Castle Hospital (1 hour drive), it would be 9 AM and by that time Dr. Shimizu would be at the clinic just down the road. So against doctor's orders, we decided to take some time to pack and go to the clinic instead of driving an hour. I had it in my head that the baby was ready to come because Meg was just 4 days away from 37 weeks (which we were told was full-term). We didn't want to get turned away. Neither did we want them to stop the labor. We didn't want to have to come back maybe a day, or a week, or a month later. Besides, we didn't even think
that this was really happening. So, we decided to go to the clinic and just get it checked out before heading all of the way down to the hospital.

I had no clue what to bring, but I got started by getting a suitcase out and throwing some clothes in it for us and the baby. All the while, I was taking a break every two minutes to watch the clock and jot down the time and duration of each of Meg's contractions. I loaded the car, fixed Meg some toast to eat, and got her to take a shower (she was thankful that she did) by 9 AM. I called the clinic to let them know that we were coming in to see Dr. Shimizu.

At 10 AM, we met with Dr. Shimizu. She looked at my stack of post-it notes full of contraction times and scolded us for not going straight to the hospital like she had told us. We felt really bad; like we had done something really wrong. Dr. Shimizu checked Meg out. She was dilated to 4.5 or 5 cm and the baby was at zero station. The doctor told us to go the hospital and don't stop for anything. She told us, "I am going to try to have them stop your labor because you are too early. But, I don't think that I am going to be able to. You are having this baby today!"

We got in the car a drove! I got really excited and simultaneously Meg's contractions got a lot more intense. Thoughts of the complications due to a premature birth lingered in our heads as we drove. However, I was still determined to get in that photo shoot. The drive from Kahuku to Kailua is full of amazing beaches, so I pulled over at one near Chinaman's Hat. I thought Meg would thank me later, but she wasn't really in the mood for a photo shoot. So, I pulled back onto the road and drove. We thought that was going to be the only detour until... the contractions were working in a way that made Meg think that she was going to wet her pants. We passed the Kaneohe public skate park and pulled in for a bathroom break (the first photo in sequence on the blog). By this time, the contractions were pretty strong. On the drive I called Mardi (Meg's mom), Lisa (Meg's sister), and my mom (Nanci) to share the news. They reassured us that everything was going to be okay, but mostly just seemed really, really excited.

At 11 AM, we arrived at the hospital and got checked in within 5 minutes. I came back from parking the car and they began checking Meg. She was now dilated to a 7! Our nurse, Donna, called Dr. Shimizu and was told that it was too late to stop the baby from coming. It was coming no matter what. We started thinking, "Our baby is going to be born August 4th. Wow!"

By 12 Noon, Meg decided to get the epidural. She was handling the pain without tears or getting irritable in anyway. But, because Meg didn't know how much worse the pain would get or how much longer it would last, she decided that she might as well go for less painful method. I was amazed at Meg's strength, tolerance, and coherence all this time. Meg has let me know since then that my words of encouragement really helped, but I can hardly take any credit. She was able to logically think things through between contractions, catch her breath, and ask me if I was doing okay. I would laugh every time.

After the epidural everything became calm and relaxed. The baby's vitals were looking more calm, the nurses were more calm, and Meg was drifting to sleep. The "scary" hospital all of sudden transformed into a fancy spa or some sort of resort. We looked out the 25-foot wide window at the Ko'olau Mountains, watched a couple episodes of "Friends" on the flat screen TV, and laughed. The worst was over. And, Meg was still in denial that it was even happening. She rested but couldn't sleep because she was mulling over all the things that "had" to happen this week:

Tomorrow - Photo shoot, Doctors appointment, Hospital tour
Wednesday - Hawaii Friends Baby Shower
Thursday - Final Birthing Class, WIC appointment
Saturday - Ward Friends Baby Shower, Nest

At 5:45 PM, Dr. Shimizu arrived and popped Meg's water bag. One hour later, Meg began pushing. And like I said, 9 pushes later we had a baby. On the first push we could see the baby's head and on the last push the baby came out all at once. Meg cried for the first time all day. Just as the events of the day processed in our heads, the baby was placed on Meg's chest. The events all collided together overfilling our hearts with joy. The baby came out much larger than anticipated and showed few signs of pre-mature birth. Our unspoken fears, fears that I think everybody has, quickly melted away. Our prayers were answered and joy overtook us.

THE NAME - INDIE KALEA THOMANDER
We've received mixed feedback about the name we chose, which caused us to hesitate on going ahead with it, until last night. We tried out names throughout the day yesterday such as Kirra, Reese, and Indie. Indie was always our favorite and the one that we felt best reflected our style and personality. Indie is just cool, different, and seems fairly simple.

People have associated the name with India, Indians, Indiana, and Indiana Jones. However, the associations that we prefer include "independent", and "indie", as used in the abbreviation for indie music and indie film. Another association that we like is "indy" as used in action sports (skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding). For those of you unfamiliar with the indy-grab, it is when you jump and grab your board between your feet with your trailing hand. We're sure that Indie will be doing lots of these indy-grabs in the future.

For the middle name we wanted to use a Hawaiian name, after her birthplace. We chose Kalea, which means bright (like sunshine). We thought that these three names sounded pretty together.

So, officially...

We welcome INDIE KALEA THOMANDER to the world!

Aloha!

Corbin, Meg, and Indie Thomander