Henry is here!

Our little baby boy has arrived and is already a week old! I know all new moms say this but it's so true, time really does fly by.

Henry has quite the little personality already. He is a very sweet and chill baby, but when he does cry, he does not hold back! His cry is similar to the velicoraptor in Jurassic Park. Ear-splitting! He has the most extreme neck strength of any baby I've ever seen. When we burp him, he raises his head up like crazy up off our shoulders. I can always tell when he is hungry because he will bang his head up and down on my chest like a rooster! He does not like laying on his back to sleep. He would rather be at an incline- thank goodness for the miracle that is the vibrating bouncy seat. He loves to eat. I'll take the sleep deprivation over this adjustment to breastfeeding any day of the week- talk about a labor of love! This boy has a voracious appetite and it's taking "the girls" a little while to get in the swing of things.

Here's the story of how he arrived.....

Henry arrived on 10/20/09 at 8:24am weighing 8lbs 2oz and measuring 20.5 inches long. I started having contractions on Monday at about 5:00 while I was taking a nap. We had scheduled the induction earlier that day for Thursday, but this baby had other plans! The contractions started out about 15 minutes apart and pretty mild. I kept feeling them throughout the evening and they gradually started getting closer. I tried to stay calm- we took a walk, I took a shower, and finished packing my bag. As we started getting ready for bed, they started getting quite a bit more painful but we both thought labor was still a long way away. I tried to sleep but OMG- talk about the most pain I have ever felt in my life. I don't know why I was worried about knowing what a contraction would feel like, you definitely know!

By 2:30am, I woke Marc up and told him it was time to go (ah, just like the movies)- they were about 6 minutes apart and hurting like a motha. When we got to the hospital, I was already dilated 4cm which made me very, very happy because that meant I could get my epidural. After 3 tries (ugghh), the anethesiologist finally got the epidural going. Once that got cranking, we all just rested and tried to sleep. The nurse kept a close eye on us because mine and the baby's blood pressure was pretty low. I had to wear an oxygen mask to keep our pressures up. But....I started feeling a little scared with how closely they were monitoring us.

By 7:30am, the doctor came in and checked me and said I was 9.5cm! I couldn't believe how fast it was progressing, especially after so three weeks straight of doctor's visits with no change in dilation. They felt the baby's head and said he was face up instead of the preferred face down, so for the next 45 minutes they had me switch positions and try to get him to move. By 8:15am, the doctor came in, checked me again, looked me straight in the eyes, and said it was time to push and we needed to get this baby out quickly. All of a sudden, there are like 10 nurses in the room and my mom's holding one hand and Marc is holding the other and it's time to push! I pushed about 15 times and then he was out, but there was no crying. Henry had the cord wrapped around his neck and shoulders and was blue. The look on Marc's face scared me most of all since I couldn't see the baby from where I was. He was crying and I heard my mom crying behind me. But, thank GOD, the doctor worked quickly and cut that cord off and we heard him cry! They took him away to check him out and I just rememer feeling sort of in shock and numb with how fast everything happened and how truly frightening it had gotten. After they made sure he was A-ok (9 on the Apgar, thank you very much), they brought me my precious baby boy and I cried. I love him so much :)

Love,

Lyndsey, Marc, Henry, and Betsy