It's a Boy!

On Tuesday, our family welcomed a new little boy, Levi.  He is so precious and we're so glad he's here.

He weighed in at a healthy 9 lbs 15 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long.

After 9 months and an extra week and a half of waiting...and all the wonder and concern over his health earlier in the pregnancy...I finally got to hold my precious baby.  Healthy and strong, just what we had prayed for.  Thank you dear Lord.

After about 2 weeks of sporadic and inconsistent contractions, my doctor and I thought it was time to try to catch these contractions and use them rather than let them fade off as they had done previously.  So we scheduled an induction for Tuesday.  But a medical (pitocin) induction was the last resort.  When I got to the hospital, I had been having contractions.  They set me up on the monitors and for about 45 minutes I continued to have contractions about every 4 minutes.  None of them were very strong, but at least they were consistent.  We (the doctor, Shawn and I) made the decision to break my water and hope that would prompt my body to take over and move on to the next stage of labor.  This plan worked marvelously.  My very next contraction was significantly stronger and longer.  My contractions slowed down a bit (to every 5 minutes), but they gained in intensity.  Before too long laying on the bed was no longer comfortable.  So I moved around to new positions to try to manage the pain.  Things were working well.  My doctor checked me and confirmed that things were progressing. 
Then, I got in the whirlpool tub thinking I'd try it for about 30 minutes.  Well, I guess I fell into a bit of a time warp because I was in there for an hour.  It was very productive hour though!  I started to feel the need to push and the nurse got the doctor.  I saw my doctor give the nurse a look that said, "Am I going to have to deliver a baby in the tub?!"  But she was sparred that adventure.  I was able to get to the bed between contractions.  And praise the Lord, I only had to push for 15 minutes!  That felt like record speed to me since I pushed for 2 hours with my first and 35 VERY LONG and HARD minutes with my second.

I was much more nervous about this labor than I had been previously.  I know you're supposed to know everything by your third child, but you know how they say every baby and every labor is different?  Well, they are completely right.  My second delivery was completely opposite from what I was expecting.  The first went so well, that I was just flying by the seat of my pants with the second.  I just figured that everything would fall into place as it did with the first.  Well, it turns out I was wrong.  There were multiple differences which I wasn't prepared for.  So this time around, I did a lot more preparing.  We went to a few birth classes to refresh our minds.  We had many good conversations about what I wanted and what we were going to try to do during labor.  I had a fantastic and thorough appointment with the nurse midwife at my doctor's office to help me organize my thoughts and address my concerns about labor.  And I even wrote out a birth plan--first time for that.  As I reflected back to my previous deliveries, I realized that I become very non-verbal as things intensify.  So I tried to counter this by communicating as much as possible before labor really got going.  Knowing that Shawn knew what I wanted and wasn't just going to "read my mind" was very reassuring.  He was a great coach and I couldn't have done it without him.

Here are some more pictures of our first two days with our little baby.  He is such a good baby so far.  He sleeps a lot more than I remember our other two even at this point, and he's much easier to please.  And as you can tell in these pictures, he's very loved.  

Here he is getting his first bath.  Our nurse assistant, Agnes did the honors.  I believe she also gave our little man his first bath too.   We had some fabulous nurses this time.  I felt so blessed by their care and hard work to help me deliver this precious boy, their attention to his needs, and then help in my recovery.  OB nurses are something else!  They all seem to have a healthy helping of Super Woman mixed into their personalities.

Born with long fingernails, it was fairly soon that he scratched himself.  I just hate it when they do that.

ready to go home

Here are my two little boys today.  Surely they are discussing plans for future adventures together.  And I'm looking forward to seeing them grow and play together.  What a blessing all of my children are to me.