Nathaniel's birth story took a bit longer to come to completion than expected. The way that babies come into the world is known, but timing and other specifics can be a bit of a science of their own.
Wednesday
Nathaniel's story starts on the evening of May 15th, two days prior to his actual birth. Anna was busy making dinner when the contractions started. She had noticed them most of the afternoon, but they had been around for months and had been much stronger than in her first pregnancy. She decided to start timing them anyway and they were consistent and strong, so when Eric came home from work, we called our friend Kristi to come and watch Edmund so that we could go to the hospital. We were ready for jellybean to arrive.
We put Edmund down for bed right before Kristi arrived, so the timing was perfect. We figured that by the time that the baby came out, that he wouldn't even notice that we were gone since Eric was not going to stay at the hospital.
We headed over to the hospital around 8:00 pm and were eager to get to meet little jellybean. After arriving at the hospital, Anna noticed that her contractions were starting to lessen in strength, but she still decided to go into triage and get checked out because 1 week prior, she had already dilated to 4 cm. This made us a bit anxious since the OB seemed to think that we would have had the baby the weekend prior.
In triage, they monitored the baby and monitored her contractions and noticed that the contractions were becoming farther apart. They checked her and she was dilated at 4.5 cm, so she had made some progress, but not much. The nurse let her walk around for an hour and then asked her to come back for additional monitoring to see if she could get labor to continue. So, we walked around the labor and delivery ward for an hour to see if they could get labor kick started again. The contractions continued, but didn't seem to increase in strength. We watched other mothers and their newborn babies being wheeled to the elevators to the postpartum floor and our hearts swelled as the prospect of our new little one seemed near.
After an hour, we went back to the triage room and they checked Anna and the baby again. She was now dilated to 5 cm, but the contractions were not very strong. It was at this point that we decided that we should go home. It was around 10:30 pm and Anna was getting tired, so despite encouragement from the triage nurse to stay, we went home to get some rest. The triage nurse told us that she was sure she would see us before the end of her shift the following morning.
So, we went home and the contractions stopped and became periodic as they usually were. We apologized to Kristi for the "dress rehearsal", but she was really sweet about it. Babies come when they want to.
Thursday
Thursday passed with no change.
Friday
Most of Friday passed with very few contractions. Anna even talked to her friend Carol and joked about the baby never coming out. Her friend Kristi called to see how things were going because she was planning on going out for a birthday dinner with her parents. Anna told her that she would be shocked if she went into labor so to go ahead and enjoy her evening out.
It was a beautiful warm evening, so Anna decided that her and Eric should grill out for dinner. We ate grilled chicken out on the screen porch and Anna remarked about what a perfect evening it was out and how she would miss having a relaxing evening for a while because she knew it would be busy after the baby came. We played in the backyard with Edmund, looked at the garden, and went on a short walk to enjoy the nice weather.
We put Edmund to bed and caught up on the latest episode of Once Upon a Time, since we had missed the season finale. It was now a little bit after 10 pm and Anna decided that she should head up to bed since she hadn't been sleeping very well at night (due to being super pregnant) and needed to make sure that she went to bed early enough. She asked Eric to come upstairs with her to chat with her and as she was brushing her teeth, the contractions started.
Oh. My. Word.
The contractions came fast and furious and out of nowhere. Anna told Eric to call Kristi because she needed to come over right away. Eric asked if he should get a stop watch for her to time her contractions again. She assured him that they were horrible and that he needed to get Kristi over here ASAP to be here while Edmund was sleeping.
It took about 25 minutes for Kristi's husband Lee to come since Kristi was still hanging out with her parents. In the mean time, Anna's contractions continued to be horribly strong and she worried that she would have the baby at home. (In case you are curious, Anna did not have the baby at home.)
Lee arrived at around 10:40 pm. Eric gave Lee a few instructions. Anna had printed out info on how to take care of Edmund and info on his schedule and we made sure he saw it. Edmund loves Lee, so we knew he was in good hands. We are blessed to have great friends.
Eric and Anna bolted out the door and raced to the hospital, which luckily is close by.
At 10:50, we arrived at the hospital. Eric dropped Anna off at the front door and she waddled upstairs as fast as she could to the labor and delivery ward and Eric followed closely behind after parking the car. They admitted her quickly since she was crying because the contractions were hard and close together. They brought us into triage and checked Anna and found out she was fully dilated, 100% effaced, and at a zero station. The baby was ready to come!
They wheeled Anna over to the labor and delivery room where they started working on getting everything set up for delivery. They asked Anna the usual long list of questions through her contractions while the nurses worked on getting the IV set up in her arm. It took 3 nurses and both arms to finally get one in.
The on-call midwife, Christina, arrived and told us that they would need to break Anna's bag of water before she could push to make sure that there wasn't any meconium staining. Anna asked for her to break it right away, so she leaned back and let her do it during the short pause between contractions. Everything looked good and she was told that she could push whenever she was ready.
Anna didn't feel like she had to push but the contractions were so hard she didn't care. She was tired of breathing through the contractions and just wanted the labor to be over and the baby to be out. She was also worried that if she didn't get the baby out soon, she would need them to sedate her somehow or she would just die. So, with Eric holding one leg and the nurse holding the other, she started to push.
She pushed through about 8 cycles of contractions when the midwife told her that she could see the baby and that she had to push one more time through a contraction. Anna told her she couldn't since she had already pushed three times, but the OB insisted, so she yelled and mustered one final push, and jellybean arrived.
The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck once and the midwife couldn't get it untangle as the baby was coming out, so she cut it quickly so that it didn't choke little jellybean. They immediately set the baby on Anna's chest. He was purple in color, not pink like Edmund was when he came out, which made both of us a little nervous. The nurses worked on rubbing off the vernix while Anna checked between his legs to find out the gender.
"It's a boy!" she exclaimed.
He was perfect - big blue eyes, tons of dark brown hair, a turned up nose just like Edmund, long and lean like his dad, big feet, long fingers. He was beautiful.
One of the other nurses asked if she could take him get him to get him to pinken up a bit more, so they took Nathaniel over to the table to start working on cleaning him up while the midwife worked on getting Anna fixed up.
At 11:41 PM, approximately 50 minutes after arriving at the hospital, Nathaniel Thomas was born.
8 lbs, 2 oz and 20 inches long
Saturday
After moving to postpartum, Eric did end up spending the night since we didn't get to our room until around 3 AM. He left around 8 AM to go home, get some sleep, and to come back with Edmund in the afternoon so that he could meet his new little brother.
Anna tried to sleep and worked on taking care of the baby until Eric returned with Edmund. We weren't sure how he was going to take it, even though we had worked on preparing him for the baby for months.
The baby was luckily getting checked by the pediatrician when Edmund and Eric arrived, so it gave us a little bit of time to hang out with Edmund there prior to showing him the baby. Edmund missed his mom, but he was more interested in the potato chips that dad gave him to eat than getting his picture taken with her.
Nathaniel arrived back into the room shortly after they arrived and Anna introduced them. Edmund smiled and said "bay-bee". He seemed to actually like him and we hope that this trend continues.
We hung out for a little while and got to know each other a little better - our new family of four.
We are looking forward to seeing what the next few weeks bring as we are sure they will be challenging, sleep deprived, but precious as we all adjust to the new member of our family. We are truly blessed to have Nathaniel finally here.
-Eric, Anna, Edmund, & Nathaniel
Nathaniel's story starts on the evening of May 15th, two days prior to his actual birth. Anna was busy making dinner when the contractions started. She had noticed them most of the afternoon, but they had been around for months and had been much stronger than in her first pregnancy. She decided to start timing them anyway and they were consistent and strong, so when Eric came home from work, we called our friend Kristi to come and watch Edmund so that we could go to the hospital. We were ready for jellybean to arrive.
We put Edmund down for bed right before Kristi arrived, so the timing was perfect. We figured that by the time that the baby came out, that he wouldn't even notice that we were gone since Eric was not going to stay at the hospital.
We headed over to the hospital around 8:00 pm and were eager to get to meet little jellybean. After arriving at the hospital, Anna noticed that her contractions were starting to lessen in strength, but she still decided to go into triage and get checked out because 1 week prior, she had already dilated to 4 cm. This made us a bit anxious since the OB seemed to think that we would have had the baby the weekend prior.
In triage, they monitored the baby and monitored her contractions and noticed that the contractions were becoming farther apart. They checked her and she was dilated at 4.5 cm, so she had made some progress, but not much. The nurse let her walk around for an hour and then asked her to come back for additional monitoring to see if she could get labor to continue. So, we walked around the labor and delivery ward for an hour to see if they could get labor kick started again. The contractions continued, but didn't seem to increase in strength. We watched other mothers and their newborn babies being wheeled to the elevators to the postpartum floor and our hearts swelled as the prospect of our new little one seemed near.
After an hour, we went back to the triage room and they checked Anna and the baby again. She was now dilated to 5 cm, but the contractions were not very strong. It was at this point that we decided that we should go home. It was around 10:30 pm and Anna was getting tired, so despite encouragement from the triage nurse to stay, we went home to get some rest. The triage nurse told us that she was sure she would see us before the end of her shift the following morning.
So, we went home and the contractions stopped and became periodic as they usually were. We apologized to Kristi for the "dress rehearsal", but she was really sweet about it. Babies come when they want to.
Thursday
Thursday passed with no change.
Friday
Most of Friday passed with very few contractions. Anna even talked to her friend Carol and joked about the baby never coming out. Her friend Kristi called to see how things were going because she was planning on going out for a birthday dinner with her parents. Anna told her that she would be shocked if she went into labor so to go ahead and enjoy her evening out.
It was a beautiful warm evening, so Anna decided that her and Eric should grill out for dinner. We ate grilled chicken out on the screen porch and Anna remarked about what a perfect evening it was out and how she would miss having a relaxing evening for a while because she knew it would be busy after the baby came. We played in the backyard with Edmund, looked at the garden, and went on a short walk to enjoy the nice weather.
We put Edmund to bed and caught up on the latest episode of Once Upon a Time, since we had missed the season finale. It was now a little bit after 10 pm and Anna decided that she should head up to bed since she hadn't been sleeping very well at night (due to being super pregnant) and needed to make sure that she went to bed early enough. She asked Eric to come upstairs with her to chat with her and as she was brushing her teeth, the contractions started.
Oh. My. Word.
The contractions came fast and furious and out of nowhere. Anna told Eric to call Kristi because she needed to come over right away. Eric asked if he should get a stop watch for her to time her contractions again. She assured him that they were horrible and that he needed to get Kristi over here ASAP to be here while Edmund was sleeping.
It took about 25 minutes for Kristi's husband Lee to come since Kristi was still hanging out with her parents. In the mean time, Anna's contractions continued to be horribly strong and she worried that she would have the baby at home. (In case you are curious, Anna did not have the baby at home.)
Lee arrived at around 10:40 pm. Eric gave Lee a few instructions. Anna had printed out info on how to take care of Edmund and info on his schedule and we made sure he saw it. Edmund loves Lee, so we knew he was in good hands. We are blessed to have great friends.
Eric and Anna bolted out the door and raced to the hospital, which luckily is close by.
At 10:50, we arrived at the hospital. Eric dropped Anna off at the front door and she waddled upstairs as fast as she could to the labor and delivery ward and Eric followed closely behind after parking the car. They admitted her quickly since she was crying because the contractions were hard and close together. They brought us into triage and checked Anna and found out she was fully dilated, 100% effaced, and at a zero station. The baby was ready to come!
They wheeled Anna over to the labor and delivery room where they started working on getting everything set up for delivery. They asked Anna the usual long list of questions through her contractions while the nurses worked on getting the IV set up in her arm. It took 3 nurses and both arms to finally get one in.
The on-call midwife, Christina, arrived and told us that they would need to break Anna's bag of water before she could push to make sure that there wasn't any meconium staining. Anna asked for her to break it right away, so she leaned back and let her do it during the short pause between contractions. Everything looked good and she was told that she could push whenever she was ready.
Anna didn't feel like she had to push but the contractions were so hard she didn't care. She was tired of breathing through the contractions and just wanted the labor to be over and the baby to be out. She was also worried that if she didn't get the baby out soon, she would need them to sedate her somehow or she would just die. So, with Eric holding one leg and the nurse holding the other, she started to push.
She pushed through about 8 cycles of contractions when the midwife told her that she could see the baby and that she had to push one more time through a contraction. Anna told her she couldn't since she had already pushed three times, but the OB insisted, so she yelled and mustered one final push, and jellybean arrived.
The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck once and the midwife couldn't get it untangle as the baby was coming out, so she cut it quickly so that it didn't choke little jellybean. They immediately set the baby on Anna's chest. He was purple in color, not pink like Edmund was when he came out, which made both of us a little nervous. The nurses worked on rubbing off the vernix while Anna checked between his legs to find out the gender.
"It's a boy!" she exclaimed.
He was perfect - big blue eyes, tons of dark brown hair, a turned up nose just like Edmund, long and lean like his dad, big feet, long fingers. He was beautiful.
One of the other nurses asked if she could take him get him to get him to pinken up a bit more, so they took Nathaniel over to the table to start working on cleaning him up while the midwife worked on getting Anna fixed up.
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| foot printing |
8 lbs, 2 oz and 20 inches long
Saturday
After moving to postpartum, Eric did end up spending the night since we didn't get to our room until around 3 AM. He left around 8 AM to go home, get some sleep, and to come back with Edmund in the afternoon so that he could meet his new little brother.
Anna tried to sleep and worked on taking care of the baby until Eric returned with Edmund. We weren't sure how he was going to take it, even though we had worked on preparing him for the baby for months.
The baby was luckily getting checked by the pediatrician when Edmund and Eric arrived, so it gave us a little bit of time to hang out with Edmund there prior to showing him the baby. Edmund missed his mom, but he was more interested in the potato chips that dad gave him to eat than getting his picture taken with her.
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| chips are more interesting than cameras |
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| mom and her little bears |
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| the boys |
-Eric, Anna, Edmund, & Nathaniel
