His name is Aydin Arnoud! Born November 26th, 2007, 7 pounds 15 ounces, 20.5 inches.
Our little bundle of joy arrived Monday, November 26th after a relatively easy delivery. My light contractions started late Saturday night before I went to bed. It woke me up couple of times and finally at 6am Sunday morning I got up to a stronger set of contraction. We had to bring out cat Bisco to Ester and Ramon for the next couple of weeks that evening and made dinner plans with them at 6pm. I passed the mucus plug by 12pm and the contractions were getting closer and closer by 6pm... We still broight Bisco over and decided we should pack the hospital stuff just in case we need to show up at the hospital after dinner. It was a funny dinner with me having contractions every 3 minutes, but everyone was very understanding. (Hey, I was the one in pain! )
We showed up at the hospital around 9:15pm with a minute long contractions every two minutes and they said I was already 2cm dilated and in labor. We walked around in the hospital until I was 3cm and went to our room by 11:30pm. The contractions were getting so intense at 5cm that my whole body was shaking with pain everytime I had a contraction. It was 24 hours since the pain started and I was really tired. I couldn't imagine going on with it and having to push the baby for 2-3 hours in the end. At that point, I decided that it was time for an epidural. The epidural was applied around 2am changing the whole picture for me. I didn't feel any contractions anymore and even if I didn't sleep, I was able to get some rest.
The doctor came and broke my water around 3am at 6cm. She said I should be ready to push in another 4hours, but I was already 10cm and ready to push when she showed up at 6am. There the real thing started... the ring of fire.
After pushing for about 45 minutes, they said that that the babies heart rate was going up and they had to vacuum him. For some reason, the idea of my baby being vacuumed gave me a real boost as I really didn't want them to vacuum him. So started pushing even harder risking tearing up and he was born naturally and Raymond cut his cord at 7:44am. Both Raymond and I were in tears. I couldn't have done it without Raymond's endless perfect support! He went through the long two night with me and we were both exhausted, but the joy of having gone through this and seeing the baby came out as tears for a little while.
It was hard physically, but also easy as it was without complications overall. We feel very blessed to have a healthy boy.
I'll starting writing to a new blog on this site from today on. Please follow our story there and keep those comments coming. We love reading them!
For the first time I can leave a comment as a father! For those other fathers-to-be, birth is an amazing experience and I recommand to try to be there as much as possible to florish the bond with your partner and feel the immediate connection with your child. Also, seeing your partner cry with joy when the little one is on her chest, skin-to-skin, is something you do not want to miss!
Yay!!!! Welcome to motherhood!!! I'm so happy for you! I can't wait to read about all the adventures of your new little boy as well as see lots of pics of him!!