It's a... wait a minute, I'm going to make you read it

I'm going to ruin the ending of this post right from the start. My wife had a baby this morning. It's funny though people will keep reading to find out the silly little details like name weight and length. Who is going to remember the weight and length at the end of the week? I don't remember the lengths of either of my other boys (I do, however remember their weights).

So my wife had an appointment with the midwife (Valerie) yesterday morning. She came over to our house and with the due date quickly approaching (Feb. 8), she wanted to do an exam. She found that my wife was dilated to 2 cm, 75% effaced and the baby's head was positioned correctly in the pelvis. A birth was going to happen soon. I already ruined that part, but my family will keep reading anyway.

The midwife left and I got home later that evening. My wife was experiencing some "cramping" that was a little more significant than had happened before. She felt that the baby was on the way within a day. There also happened to be a snow storm on the way within a day, so we decided to call Valerie and have her come back and stay with us rather than call her when my wife was expecting a baby any minute and have a midwife stuck on the other side of the valley in a blizzard. It worked out well the way we did it. But before Valerie gets here, we need to get some pictures of how 'big' my wife is. OK dear, stick it out.
... and suck it in.
Valerie got back and checked my wife again to see how things had progressed. Well, things hadn't progressed all that well, the baby had turned sideways and was lying transverse in the uterus. That's generally when doctors do C-sections. Valerie gave my wife the mother of all belly massages and turned the baby head down again and we let things continue to progress. We went to "sleep" and decided to get up when my wife was in enough discomfort to wake everyone else up. I slept well anyway.

At about 3 am my wife walked into the living room to visit with Valerie. Misery loves company, I suppose. We had some wonderful soup that Valerie made us and Aly had to walk around a bit, hoping to get the baby to descend. I offered to go borrow a pogo stick, but she declined. Here is what a home birth is like. My wife walking around the kitchen at 4 am with a cup of Valerie's homemade soup.

As contractions became more regular and intense, we went into the bedroom to prepare for the birth. Valerie checked Aly another time, it wasn't transverse, which was good, instead it was breech. Baby wanted to come out butt first. At this point in labor, that was just how it was going to happen. This is why we did research on our midwife to find that she has shown many doctors how to deliver breech babies. Evidently they don't teach that in medical school. So we (when I say 'we', I mean my wife moved and I got shoved to a new spot) changed positions a little and Valerie told us what to expect.

Two good pushes (and many preparatory pushes) and the baby popped out, butt first. In fact we saw that he was a boy long before we saw his head. Dad (me) thought he was a girl, and was actually quite confident in that fact. I think the little guy wanted to prove me wrong... with flair. I'm not guessing on the next one. So it was a boy and we named him Shackleton Lawrence. We're waiting for Gramps to come up with a screen name for him. He weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. And he was cuter than most babies because his head didn't get all deformed on the way out. Although he did get a big bruise on his bum. Mom and baby are both doing great. That is just after the birth, mom and baby got some time to get to know one another from a different angle.

After Mom and baby had snuggled awhile and Dad got to interact as much as you can interact with a 15 minute old Valerie came back so we could do a little bath and cut the cord and stuff.

A couple hours later, Valerie had left and the Mugwump woke up. He was so excited last night about the baby and he was still excited this morning. After an intensive hand washing lesson, he got to hold his little brother. He was just a little disappointed that it wasn't a little sister.

And finally Six-Pence woke up and we got a picture of Mom with her boys. All are well.

I'm going to go spend time with my family.