He's here!

Our yet-to-be-officially-named baby boy arrived today at 1:33 p.m. at St. Mark's hospital. He weighed in at 6 lbs 10 oz and was 18.5 inches long (still is, approximately, I'm sure...). He's beautiful and mostly healthy and wonderful. See the pics, and below them is the story...



Robyn woke up at 4 a.m. feeling contractions, but graciously let me sleep until my alarm for work went off at 6:15. Then she told me that she'd been having contractions, fairly regularly but not real strong, so I showered and dressed for work, on the off chance that I ended up going to work if nothing was happening. We took the kids up to Grandma and Grandpa's house and went to the hospital, whereupon we discovered that Robyn was dialated to 5 cm and 80%+ effaced. They offered an epidural, which Robyn gratefully accepted. After the epidural it looked like the contractions had all but stopped, according to what I could see on the monitor. Around 1:00 p.m. (we got to the hospital at 7:30) the doc came in and said it looked like she'd been progressing, and sure enough, she was at a 10. So she started pushing shortly thereafter, and the baby's heart rate all of a sudden dropped. Like a rock. The doc grabbed the vacuum sucker thing, cut an episiotomy, and at 1:33 p.m. our little one entered the world. He took a bit of coaxing to get going, but soon he was breathing and crying a little and blinking his big dark eyes.

It turns out that the placenta had separated from the uterus right at the end of the whole process, and his cord was wrapped around his neck. Those two factors are probably what had contributed to his sudden heart issues right before delivery.

He was allowed to stay with Robyn and I for about 45 minutes while the doc and nurses cleaned things up, etc., after which they took him to the NICU nursery to make sure he was all good. Turns out he's having a little trouble with his blood sugar, which is one of a few things that can cause problems with premies (even 6+ lb premies...) So with an IV he's staying in the NICU (that's Newborn Intensive Care Unit) tonight and hopefully will be up to leaving the NICU sometime tomorrow (Tuesday) and coming home with Robyn Wednesday evening.

So that's our story. He's here. He's amazing. And so far, he's nameless. Name suggestions are welcome in the comments. :)