Welcome Nolan!

He's here!

The official stats are:

February 4, 2005
10:35am
8 lb 15 oz
21 inches long
35cm head

Pictures below!

We were not expecting quite the experience that we had, but everything turned out beautifully. I had my normal weekly checkup appointment on Thursday afternoon, and discovered that I was 100% effaced and my water was ready to break any second. The doctor, however, couldn't feel a head in the correct position, and thought he felt a little on the large side, so we went over to the hospital for an ultrasound.

The ultrasound showed that Nolan was Frank breech, (that means he was in the fetal position, head up) so we were scheduled for a c-section at 8am Friday morning, unless I went into labor sooner. We arrived at the hospital at around 7:30, and I did go into active labor while I was there, but fortunately I only had to go through about 10 hard contractions before I got into surgery.

*That* was an experince and a half. Jerry and I were escorted to the surgery suite, where he was asked to wait in the hall until I was prepped. Fortunately, the surgical nurse happened to be an extremely good client at the clinic where I worked, so she really helped me through getting the spinal block. Really, it was not that bad...a little pinchy, then wonderful, blessed numbness. It was a little odd, though...I would have sworn I could tell where my feet were, until I looked up into the reflective light fixture and discovered one leg out at nearly a right angle to my body.

Anyway, Jerry was allowed in and sat beside my head. He asked the anesthesiologist how long the procedure would take, and the doctor answered "Oh, about 3 more minutes." And then we had a baby! I remember looking at him and not really believing that he was my baby. He was HUGE! He looked like a baby a couple of months old. The Doctor made the comment that he had the apperance of a baby that was a bit overdue, so apparently our due dates were still not quite right!

I was probably in the surgery suite a total of about 20 minutes, including prep, surgery, closing, etc. I never dreamed it would be that fast. Honestly, I couldn't have had a better experience, for as nervous as I was. Easy as pie. I did get nauseated from the spinal block, but other than that, no problem! I was pretty sore for a couple of days, but they do a great job of keeping your pain under control. I had a self-medication button that gave me demerol every 30 minutes, then after that, the oral medication kept everything quite bearable.

The c-section was a blessing in disguise...Dr. said he was large enough that I would not have been able to have him naturally, even if he had been vertex. So I'm very glad that I didn't have to go through hours and hours of completely useless labor.

At any rate, Nolan's here, healthy, and we're slowly figuring each other out. He's a great baby, not really "fussy", he only really wails when he has a gas bubble that just won't come out. We're enjoying him an awful lot!