He's here!!

At 1:34 am, Friday, November 7th we were blessed with the newest addition to our little clan. Weighing in at 7 lbs, 4.5 oz and 19 in. long, he has lots of dark, wavy hair and the faintest little cleft in his chin.



After a whole pregnancy of this kid playing mind games with me I shouldn't have been too surprised that he decided to pull some last-minute tricks on me with the labor and all.
Thursday afternoon, after a long day of errands and appointments, I was heading into the house when I suddenly wet my pants. (Yeah, the girls thought that was hysterical - "But Mommy, aren't you a big girl?") Since I normally have better bladder control than that, but since there was no flooding I figured I'd better call my doc.
Ironically, next on my to-do list was to call my doc -- to schedule being induced for the following Thursday, but to tell him I hadn't given up hope that I'd go into labor on my own before that Saturday morning (when he left for vacation) so that he could finally deliver one of my babies.
Turns out my hope paid off. My water had broken. But the little rascal wasn't ready to come out yet - the breakage didn't put me into labor.
Fortunately, that meant a pain-free ride to the hospital (though I do still agree Angela, driving myself there in rush-hour traffic probably would have been a bad idea. Thanks.).
Unfortunately, it meant a lot of waiting around.
Fortunately, I was able to get my epidural before I ever had horribly painful contractions.
Unfortunately, since I was so calm, the anesthesiologist figured it'd be okay to show me the needle -- holy crap.
Fortunately, he showed me after he had shoved what looked like a striped yardstick in my back.
Unfortunately, because it took so long for my body to finally kick into labor-mode, by the time it did, the epidural drugs were wearing thin.
Unfortunately, once my body kicked into labor-mode I went from a '5' to a '10' in FIFTEEN MINUTES.
Unfortunately, I felt every bit of it.
Unfortunately, due to my previous lack of progress, the nurse had called my doc and told him not to come to the hospital, but to enjoy a night of rest at home.
Unfortunately, as a result, I was told not to cough, laugh or sneeze for fear I'd push the baby out before the doc could get there.

Fortunately, miraculously, the anesthesiologist arrived, my doc arrived, 2 1/2 pushes later our baby boy arrived, and there was much rejoicing through-out the land. Hooray!



As you can see, the girls are both thrilled to be big sisters.