Nick's Birth Day

Nick Parker Judi a.k.a. "Baby Brother" was born Wednesday, December 19th, 2012 at 3:18 pm.  His due date was December 24th, so my doctor (Dr. Bridge) induced me a few days early.

We went to the hospital at 7:30 am.  I wasn't dilated too much, so the doctor gave me something to change that and to induce labor.  By noon my contractions were hard enough that I decided that I wanted an epidural.  I spent most of the morning lying in bed hooked up to lots of monitors and cords checking my email and reading.  At 1:30 the anesthesiologist arrived and gave me an epidural and then my doctor broke my water.  After that I just got to lie back and relax until Baby Brother decided to be born.  I actually had to wait for about 45 minutes for the doctor to come back to the hospital, otherwise he would have been born at 2:00.  After two pushes he was born.  The cord was wrapped around his neck, but the doctor just unwrapped it and he was fine.

I got to hold him for a while right after he was born.  Then they measured him and weighed him.  His birth weight was 7 lbs 8.5 oz, but we think that the scale was wrong because the next day he weighed 8% less than that.  I think he was about 7 lbs 2 oz and was 19" long.  He has lots of dark hair and long feet and toes.

Dave and I waited for a while until my epidural wore off so I could change rooms.  Then Dave picked up the kids.  Ty spent the morning at his friend, Ian's house.  Kate and Jack were at school until noon (it was a short day), then they went to the Vest's house too.  At 1:30 they went to our friends, the McDonald's house and stayed there until Dave picked them up. 

Seeing Baby Brother for the first time...

The kids were wearing their shirts that they tie-dyed in art class.  And Ty was wearing his pajamas, because he never got dressed at Ian's house.  It was really cold too, like 10 degrees when they came to the hospital and he was wearing shorts.  He loves shorts

The kids loved taking turns holding Nick.  (We didn't decide on his name until before we left the hospital.)

Later that evening, Vaughn and Marianne came to see us at the hospital.  They drove all day Weds and then spent a week with us. 

The first night I slept great.  I had a nice nurse that watched Nick so I could sleep for a few hours at a time.  There was only one other couple in the OB unit the whole time that we were in the hospital.  The nurses and doctors didn't come bother us too much.  They figured since it was my 4th baby that I knew what I was doing.  Nick didn't eat much the first day.   He slept a lot!