It's a Boy!!

April 24, 2013.  I had pretty much given up hope that this little one would arrive on his own.  I was two weeks past the due date, and we had an induction scheduled for April 25th.  But the baby had other plans.

I woke up at 4am with a pretty strong contraction.  I laid in bed for about 15 minutes before I started timing them, and they were about 4 and a half minutes apart.  My doctor said that things could go much quicker this time around and to call when the contractions were between 4 and 5 minutes, but I wanted to make sure.  I got out of bed and hung out in the bathroom (to not disturb Matthew), and the contractions started coming closer together.  Matthew woke up just before 5, and I told him that I thought this was it.  We called my doctor, and he said to head over to the hospital.

We packed up a few things, told Aunt Steph (who was staying with us to help with James), and drove over to the hospital.  We got there just before 6am.  They checked me out, and I was dilated to 6cm.  Woohoo!  (fyi - with James, it took me almost 17 hours to reach 6-7cm, so needless to say, I was pretty excited!).

We headed up to labor and delivery.  Everything was going well; I was labored for awhile on the birthing ball, but between contractions, I was feeling pretty exhausted.  Around 7:30 or so, I climbed into the bed so I could rest a little easier.  They checked me again and I was 9cm dilated.  Shortly after that, I started to feel an urge to push.  My doctor hadn't arrived yet, so they called in the on-call doctor in case he didn't make it on time.  That was the hardest part - feeling the need to push, but not pushing.

Around 8:00, my doc came rushing in, which was a good thing because I don't think I could wait much longer!  My water broke a couple of minutes into pushing.  The baby was posterior (facing up instead of down), so my doctor had me change positions a couple of times to try and coax the little one into a better position.  I didn't know this at the time, but he also had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.  Because of these two things, the doctor wanted to get him out ASAP.  He told the nurse to get the vacuum extractor ready.  Well, my sweet baby apparently does not like being told what to do (or when to arrive), and he came out on the next push!

Charlie's first portrait

They placed him on my belly and rubbed him down, and Matthew told me he was a boy.  We couldn't be happier!

 When we arrived at the hospital, we weren't 100% sure on a boy's name.  After spending a few minutes with him, we knew he was our little Charlie :).  His middle name Norman comes from his Great-Grandma, Norma.

James is adjusting well to his new role as a big brother.  We feel so very blessed to have two healthy, wonderful boys.  A big thank you to our family, friends, and neighbors for all of the congratulations, presents, and food.  And an extra special thanks to Aunt Steph for staying with us for a week and Uncle Matt for coming out for the weekend to help us out - we can't express in words how much we appreciated the help!