On August 1st we welcomed our newest baby boy to our family, Aaron William. I spent most of Friday in contractions and timed them all day. They subsided around lunch so I thought it was the same as what had been happening since I was in the hospital earlier in July. I wasnt getting too excited. We took my sister out to meet a friend for the evening as she had been staying with us for the week to help me out. Drew and I took the kids out for supper, I was having contractions and they were strong like earlier in the day but again I wasnt going to freak out. We got home put the kids to bed, and took a break in our room. Then things started to happen and we started timing again. I went from 13 mins apart to 8 mins apart in 45 mins. My sister called for Drew to pick her up, so he went fast! When they got back I was in pain, then my water broke! We called the midwife at 12:20 am, and arranged to meet at the hospital for 1:00 am. I had a lot of trouble getting downstairs and into the car. We got to emergency and they let me in right away. We reached our room and met Jennie (one of my midwives) there at 1:10 am. She helped me get onto the bed while drew ran back to park the car. I was contracting the whole time and lost a lot of fluid - trashed everything I was wearing from the waist down! Yuck!Jennie tried to talk me through a few contractions and then I started to spontaneously push and couldn't stop. She was monitoring the baby's heart beat. Drew made it back just in time. Suddenly, the baby's heart rate dropped from the 150s to low 90s (the lowest I remember seeing was 89). Jennie got me to roll over, by this time I was vocalizing a lot. The "birth imminent" alarm was pushed and Jennie took charge and started coaching me to push even if I wasn't in contraction. Drew was coaching as well and did a great job (he has lots of experience now!). The nurses were there too. I was put on my back and things went quickly. I pushed a few times and baby came out!
What a relief! Our second midwife arrived shortly after. Drew told me we had a boy, to which I asked him if he was sure!
Baby was stunned at arriving so quickly and needed oxygen to get going. After that he wailed and wailed! What a wonderful noise! Our new little boy was weighed and was 6 lbs 8.4 ozs. Our biggest baby of the three and full term to boot! Aaron was born at 1:34 am - you do the math on how short my active labour was! Really though I was so relieved to have baby on the outside!
I don't know how things managed to work out as well as they did with the timing, I guess God was watching out for us again. Aaron was given back to me for skin-to-skin time. He cried for a while and then calmed down. Babies are amazing. He was swaddled and daddy held him while mommy was "repaired."
We decided to stay at the hospital for most of the day so Aaron & I could complete all the necessary outputs and get some rest. I think daddy found it difficult to sleep when the nurses kept coming in to check on us, but he got some rest. I think I was still running on adrenalin or something until around lunch time.
All in all a very exciting weekend, with a happy outcome. Lilly got over her disappointment at not getting a new baby sister. She decided just having a baby at all is the best thing ever. Aidan was happy that he got to see a new baby and that the baby gets to stay in the house.
Thank you Auntie eden for being here to watch kidlets while we were away. You did a fantastic job and we love you.
