The story.

Hi everyone,

Kids these days. You bring them home from the hospital and all they want to do is meet new friends on the internet:).

Mom and baby are doing well. All the grandparents made it up Friday and have been a tremendous help. My parents are staying in the room next to the baby. I imagine Charlie kept them up most of the night (at least Mom...Dad was snoring:), I feel kind of bad. However, this morning Grandma calmed down Charlie enough to let Amelia get some sleep. She is sleeping right now. He sure is a hungry little boy.

I am amazed at how quickly he is starting to look like his own person, even at only three days old. I feel a bit useless as I don't possess the tools to really calm him down, but I am learning.

So the story of his birthday:

Amelia went to work on Thursday and had experienced contractions most of the day. However, they were very brief, not regular and for the most part not painful. She called me at about 4pm and said I should probably wrap up any loose ends I had at work as she felt like labor might start that night. I got home about 6pm and starting recording each contraction. They were anywhere from 6-22 minutes apart and still not regular. About an hour later, we went for a mile and a half walk in the rain because Amelia was determined to keep the contractions going. After our walk and a small dinner, the contractions began to get more painful, but were still about 10 minutes apart.

At 8:45pm, her water broke. She wasn't sure if that's what it was. She went into the bathroom to check and all I heard was," Oh, that's disgusting." I couldn't help but laugh.

We called the doctor's answering service and a few minutes later were told to go to the hospital. We live about a mile away, so we walked in the birth center about 15 minutes after her water broke. In the triage room, the nurses tried to put in an IV, which is standard, but were having difficulty so we were moved down to a regular room after about 15 minutes. The contractions were becoming increasingly painful, but not unbearable. Once in our room, Amelia's contractions started coming so quickly she couldn't hardly take a breath in between. Unfortunately, the hospital had misplaced our registration paperwork, which we had dropped off weeks earlier. So while I am trying to keep Amelia focused on breathing and working through the contractions, the nurse is asking us things like,"Does anyone in your family smoke, etc?" This was a little distracting, to say the least.

Things seemed to be progressing, so finally, they decided to scrap the questions and check Amelia's cervix. She was at 6-7 cm. This was all of 5 minutes after we were in our room. About three contractions later, she was standing holding on to me and said (scream may be more like it, but now I have an excuse for not hearing out of that ear) "I need to push!!" The nurses by this time were a little frazzled and the doctor had still not yet entered the room. They, of course, said not to push until they could check her cervix again. When that contraction ended she was at 10cm!

Being a first child, we were certainly prepared for a long night of walking the halls, trying to relax, doing all the breathing we had learned in our classes. We had both brought books and figured we would likely be up all night trying to keep labor going.

Once they determined the baby was ready to come, Amelia pushed through about 4 contractions and Charlie entered the world. Amelia and I were both crying, but probably for slightly different reasons:). I would say we cried like a baby, but the resident baby was doing no such thing. This has since changed:). Amelia was able to have a completely natural childbirth, just like she wanted. Even though I don't think she ever thought it would happen like it did. It happened so quickly that much of it was a blur.

Apparently, we were the third baby that night at the hospital born within an hour and a half of arriving. Something must have been in the air.

Thanks to everyone who was able to stop by the hospital while we were there and to everyone who has sent their congratulations otherwise. We will continue to post pictures of him (because, who cares about the rest of us:). Amelia will be home for a couple of months before heading back to work and the grandparents will be here on an off for that time as well. If you are in the area, feel free to stop by and meet our newest addition. I'm sure he would love to meet you.