Brand New Baby - Zéphyrine Elizabeth

We are delighted to announce the birth of our second child, a beautiful daughter. Zéphyrine Elizabeth Bonnar was born at 3:49 a.m. on Thursday, March 19th, at Langley Memorial Hospital. At birth, she weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces, and was 20 inches long. She is a healthy, beautiful baby and we are very blessed to have her.

Deb began labour at 1:15 a.m. on Thursday, the 19th. We had both stayed up late reading and were just getting ready to go to sleep - suddenly we realized it was going to be a very tiring night. The contractions were already about 3 1/2 minutes apart, so we called the midwife after 3 contractions. Carolyn, the same midwife who had delivered Tiernan, had predicted that this would be a fast delivery, so now she told us to go straight to the hospital.

We drove straight to LMH, checked in, and got to our room at around 2 a.m. The midwife arrived not long after us. For just over an hour the contractions continued at about 3 1/2 minutes apart. Then all of a sudden things got exciting. Deb had 3 strong contractions about a minute a part. She asked me to help her kneel back on the bed and then abruptly yelled out that she had to push. The midwife was still doing paperwork as I saw the baby crown on the first push!

I called Carolyn over, and we all got ready - except for Deb, who had somehow stopped her pushing and now needed to be convinced to push again. Not such an easy thing to do, convincing her of that. After about 10 - 15 minutes, Deb decided she was ready. Four strong pushes later and the baby was out.

Unfortunately it wasn't quite over for Deb. The placenta didn't come out for over an hour and there was a fair bit of bleeding because of that. Overall though, she came through the experience better than with Tiernan's birth: less exhausted, and more able to interact with baby.

Now that we knew the baby was a girl, we gave her the name we'd chosen: Zéphyrine Elizabeth. Zéphyrine is a French name and comes from the Greek Zephyr, which means west wind or gentle breeze. It's pronounced Zeff-REEN. Two syllables, rhyming with Christine. We chose it because we liked the name and it was unique. (We couldn't give her a common name after we named our first Tiernan could we?) Elizabeth means God's promise. Elisabeth in the Bible was the mother of John the Baptist - a woman who honoured God. We hope and pray that our daughter will be both her own unique self and a woman who honours God.

Zéphyrine was very healthy at birth. We've had quite a few people ask if she was a C-Section baby because her head was perfectly round after birth. She spent most of her first day on our planet either sleeping or learning how to eat. Teaching her to breast feed wasn't easy, but it wasn't nearly as difficult as it was with Tiernan. Some extra help, prior knowledge and a more alert baby really helped. Tiernan didn't learn to breast feed for almost a week. Zéphyrine figured it out for the most part in the first day while still in hospital. We stayed in hospital for two nights and came home during the day on March 21st.

Thank goodness Zéphyrine has figured out the basics of eating well and sleeping reasonably well, because I don't know how we would have coped if was as much work as Tiernan was. Most of you know that I had been in hospital because of a liver abscess (more on that in another post). I'm recovering at home now, but both Deb and I were both worn out from that ordeal. Having a new baby is tiring enough, without going into it so fatigued in the first place.

We've had so much help from family and friends and we really appreciate all of you for the prayers and the practical support. Many friends from church and from work have visited, looked after Tiernan and provided meals. My parents have put in many, many hours coming over to help. Deb's Mom came out from Quebec to live with us for a few weeks and provided invaluable contributions taking care of us and the house.

It's now April 15th and I'm finally finishing the first blog entry about Zéphyrine. The last few weeks have been exhausting, but we still feel blessed. Being parents is a weighty responsibility and sometimes it wears us out. It is also a fantastic opportunity. Tiernan has become such a wonderful part of our lives. And now, amazingly, Zéphyrine is as well. Just like that we have a daughter we love with all of our hearts.