Our baby is here!

Our new little boy finally arrived in the 10th year of the 11th month on the 12th day in the 21st century, at 9:32pm. Hooray! (Here comes a birth story. . .so if you don't like the details skip the rest of the paragraph. . .I'm still a nurse at heart). I'd had a midwife appointment that morning and had measured small, and found out by an ultrasound that I had oligohydramnios (in other words, very little amniotic fluid) because my placenta had pretty much stopped working. So, instead of waiting for another week as was planned, I was induced that day. They started the pitocin about 3:30, and although labor was only 6 hours, it was the hardest by far, mostly because the epidural I got about 7pm, although dulling my contractions, did literally NOTHING to dull any pain/sensations for me from the waist down. So I felt everything. I could still stand and squat and kneel, which I totally did while I was pushing. It probably would have still been ok except that part of my cervix would not completely dilate, and every time I pushed I could feel my midwife trying to push back on it, and it felt like she was pushing against me. Ow. It was hard work. The longest pushing of my life (especially compared to the less-than-10-minutes of pushing to get Amri out). And the ring of fire. . .I'd never felt that before, and I'm pretty sure I never want to feel that again. Yeah. So now I know I could have a baby naturally, but don't really want to repeat that most painful 15 seconds of my life. Oh, and the placenta took almost forty minutes of MORE pushing to get out. . . the midwife said she hasn't seen a placenta be so difficult to get out in a long time.

I was super happy to know that he was a boy. I'd been guessing that our baby would be a boy, but a lot of other family members kept telling me they thought it was a girl. Hooray for little boys! He weighed 8 lbs. even (just like Amri) and was 21 inches long (just like Jeffrey) and seems WAY smaller than both. He's got a lot of brown hair, and I don't think his eyes are going to be as blue as Jeffrey's and Amri's. . .more a hazel, or even close to a brown.

As far as his name, it's going to be Jacobian, Jacobt, or some sort of Jacob for the first name (Tyson doesn't really like how common that name is, so we're experimenting with doing an uncommon version of it) Edwin (my grandpa's name, and my dad's middle name) Ikaika (Hawaiian for strength) Hazard. Jacobian Edwin Ikaika Hazard, or something like that.

Jeffrey absolutely adores the baby, and gets pretty upset when someone else gets to hold him in his presence. Amri doesn't care much. Tyson and I are loving having another little one, and my mom who came to help sometimes forgets that there are other things to do besides holding him ;) It's great, and it's crazy at the same time to think we are a family of five. FIVE! It sounds like such a big number.

Here's some pics, enjoy! (To see even more photos, click on the word "Photos" on the bottom toolbar. It won't move you to another page, but you'll be able to see more pictures, and enlarge them)

About a half hour old:

The midwife & us

Happy with daddy

Jeffrey, the super proud big brother, trying the feed the little bro a cracker

Our new family of five!