The Makings of Our Annual Christmas Newsletter: 4 weeks old

Four weeks ago today our sweet Lars Michael was born. I can't say for certain where the time has gone, but before another 4 weeks and then 4 years go by, I better write down what I can remember about the day he was born.

At 4:36am on September 23rd, I was woken up by my water breaking. The night before, the baby was pretty active, and everything I'd read said that babies get less active before they are born, so we didn't have any inkling that he would be making his debut the next day. If we'd had any clues, we might have considered going to bed before midnight!

Anyway, our midwife Jan is a good 35-40 minute drive away, so we called there and then got on the road. Contractions were not painful yet, and wouldn't be for a couple more hours. I wanted, really wanted, an all natural birth. No drugs, not plugged in to anything. Once we got to the hospital and settled into our labor and delivery room (and my water continued to break and break and break, with each contraction), I ate a large breakfast (because I felt like it, and thought it might be good to have some energy as the day went on), and labor progressed. By the time lunch rolled around, I was NOT in the mood to eat anything. But things were going well. We had taken a couple of walks up and down the hall (SIX other babies in the nursery that morning. Busy night at the tiny hospital), and the rocking chair in the room and I were becoming good friends. Steve was super supportive and caring as I breathed through progressively more intense contractions.

By the time 2:30/3pm rolled around, it was getting to be intense, and I was having a hard time relaxing. Our wonderful midwife tried to see how far along I was, but I wasn't able to let her, the contractions were too close together, and I wasn't able to get a break in between them to relax enough. She thought that I probably wasn't too much past 5cm if she had to guess, but couldn't tell for sure. Even though we had discussed various ways of pain management beforehand, I declared that I would like an epidural. The anesthesiologist happened to be not too far away, and my nurses told me that once it kicked in, I would be able to take a rest. The epidural kicked in almost instantly (so much so that I almost fell asleep sitting there while he was finishing up). As soon as I couldn't feel a thing, my midwife checked and found that I was dilated to 10cm and she could feel that the baby had a full head of hair. The epidural had relaxed me so much that I would be ready to push if I could feel anything (no nap for this girl...plus I didn't feel like sleeping after I found out the baby was so close)!

Since the epidural had worked so well (a little too well), they kept having to turn it down and coach me through pushing. Toward the end of the pushing, there was apparently a little bit too much blood, and the doctor on call came in and poked around to make sure it was just me and not the baby or the placenta. I'm glad I couldn't feel or see anything for this part (what I could see was a doctor and a lot of stainless steel tools...that was enough, thank you). Thankfully, it was just me who had a laceration in the birth canal (isn't it so nice when you can call it a birth canal? Sounds more appropriate for a blog), and the baby was fine.

Long story short, I pushed to the best of my ability, Steve held one leg, and a nurse held the other, and our midwife stood ready to catch the baby, instructing me when and how to push. All three were super encouraging, and at 7:50pm, there was a crying baby laying on my chest! We had waited to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl, so the nurses excitedly asked what the baby was. Our midwife said that since we had waited so long to find out, it was our announcement to make. The umbilical cord was conveniently sitting right between the baby's legs, so it was a second before Steve announced, "It's a boy, we have a son!" Soon after, Steve got to cut the cord (it was more difficult to cut than one would think), and after a bit they weighed and measured our son, saying he was 7 lbs, 2.8 ounces, and 19 inches long, and then returned him to our arms. Looking at his full head of blonde hair, we decided his name was Lars (more on the name in a separate post).

Since he's been born, not a day has gone by where his picture hasn't been taken (thanks, iPhones!), we are quite smitten. You can probably see a lot of those pictures here.

Steve took a few pictures with our actual camera in the hospital, some of which are below (the ones with Steve are from my phone):

He was so excited to finally meet me ;)

Blissed out.

Father meets son

Getting weighed

First visitors! They had waited in the waiting room for the afternoon, and this is probably an hour or so after Lars was born. We have some good friends :)