Born September 18, 2007 at 10:40 a.m. He weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. and was 18 1/2 inches long. My actual due date wasn't until September 30, so I still thought I had some time and wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been for his arrival, but he had other plans. About 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning I woke up with contractions that were definitely more painful than the usual Braxton-Hicks ones. They were about 8 minutes apart, so I woke up Peter to tell him what was going on and that I was going to go take a bath to see if that would help me relax. Being Peter and one of the heaviest sleepers I know, I'm not sure he fully grasped the fact that I could be going into labor because after a sleepy acknowledgement that he heard me, he fell right back asleep as if I had told him nothing more interesting than that I was taking a potty break. Anyway, as the time progressed my contractions got closer together and more painful and I began to think, "wow, this could really be it." By 3:30 the contractions were about 3 minutes apart and I was on the couch in the living room sort of moaning in pain. Thank goodness that our condo is small because somehow I managed to wake up Peter. We decided to wait an hour and make sure they were consistent before going to the hospital. Around 4:15 I told Peter to start packing our bags which he did, although so slowly I was considering doing it myself if I could only have moved without setting off another contraction. It's not that Peter wasn't concerned about me, he just really has a hard time getting going in the morning, especially before 5:00, bless him. Finally we left and got the the hospital around 5. Let me tell you something, folks, contractions are extremely painful. When we parked the car I was right in the middle of a contraction (which by now lasted about 1 1/2 minutes each, leaving me only about 1 1/2 minutes or less to rest before the next one), and couldn't get out of the car. The man driving the sweeping machine around the parking lot was kind enough to stop and offer to get us a wheelchair which we gladly accepted. When we got upstairs to labor and delivery, Peter picked up the red phone which is only for patients in labor (yeah, I felt cool that we could use that one), said something like, "Um, I think my wife's in labor," to which I felt like saying "Of course I'm in labor! This doesn't exactly tickle, you know!" and they let us in. After getting me to a labor room the nurse checked me and told me I was dilated to a 6 and could get an epidural right away if I wanted one (which I definitely did). After that it was a lot more pleasant. By about 10:00 I was progressing nicely but my water hadn't broken, so the doctor came and did it. After that it went really quickly and soon I was ready to begin pushing. Five good contractions worth of pushing later, out came this little head and body and out came the most beautiful little cry I had ever heard. That cry was the cue for my water works to start and tears just started rolling out of the corners of my eyes. He was so tiny but so perfect. I'll admit he did look a little funny because his nose was squashed and his lips were swollen after the ordeal of coming through the birth canal. There's one picture of him right after he was born which Peter calls the Haan Solo picture because it looks like when Haan Solo was frozen in all the weird metal or whatever it was. I'll post it here and you can see what I mean about the nose and lips:
After the swelling went down, we could see that he looks just like his dad in the eyes and nose and just like me when I was a baby in the lips and chin. Here's one of him awake:
Man, I'm so in love with this little guy. In fact, I'd better go pay attention to him because I've been writing this a little too long. Here are a few parting shots. Enjoy!
