Zachary Meets Kate's Family

Here are some pictures of Kate's family meeting Zachary... lots of love for our little guy!

Loving Zachary

We are so delighted to get so much time together as a family, with Louie joining Zachary and I at home in between his morning and afternoon routes for a few hours. He squawks like a little bird and sounds like a little kitten sometimes too. His neck is already so strong and he rolled over at just 22 days old! I can't believe how fast the time is going, but we are enjoying him so much.

Zachary Louis was born!

I realize this is 5 weeks after the fact, but it turns out that being a new parent has put getting online as a lower priority in life... with that being said, it is good to be finally updating you about our son!

Late in the night of Thursday, January 19, 2012, mild contractions started for me. Around 12:30 AM, I was laying in bed thinking about how my work wasn't quite ready for someone else to take it over, so I logged on to my work computer to wrap things up (this shouldn't really be a surprise if you know about my much-more-laid-back-now-than-ever-but-still-a TYPE A-personality). I worked for about an hour and then got back in bed. I slept in between my contractions all night, until about 7, when Louie got the iTouch and had my use the Lap App to time the contractions. We called both our midwife and doula to let them know contractions were 6-8 minutes apart. They told us to stay at home if I was doing ok until they were a little closer together. We both took a nap and woke up shortly after 9 AM. Louie packed the final items and loaded the car and I continued having contractions in bed. We made our way to the hospital slowly, as it was snowing for the first time in weeks.

We arrived at 10:30AM and I was put on the monitors so they could see how baby and I were doing. I also got an antibiotic through an IV and our doula arrived. I was already 3-4 cm dilated, which was so encouraging to hear! I spent some time on the birthing ball and breathed through my contractions relatively easily. We had the lights off, except for a few lamps and some fake candles, and we had some music in the room too. After a while on the birthing ball, I took a bath for about an hour or an hour and a half. When I got out of the bath, I was already at 6 cm. I went back to the birthing ball and the midwife wanted to check me after a while, and when I got up, my water broke. I said, "Well, my water just broke, I'll be right back." God gave me such peace and calm through the whole labor and delivery, this is just a small peek into what it was like. I was shortly at 8 cm, and progressing at about 1 cm/hour (which she later told me is common for second births, but not for first babies).

Around 3pm, I started to feel the need to push, so they checked my progress again and I was at 9 cm. I waited a few more minutes and asked if they were sure I couldn't start pushing, because my desire to push was getting stronger and stronger. My midwife checked me during a contraction and I was at 9.5 cm, so she said that the next contraction I could start pushing. A quick 25 minutes later, our baby was born at 3:30pm. The midwife asked Louie to tell us if it was a boy or girl, and he announced that it was a boy! He cut the umbilical cord and our baby was put on my chest for some snuggle time.

At 5 pounds, 1 ounce and 18.5 inches long, our baby was quite a bit smaller than any of us expected. We got two hours of skin-to-skin time, which was so sweet.

We welcome our sweet baby boy, Zachary Louis, to our family!