Okay, so I'm a little late with this. Like 10 days late.
After waiting for what seemed like forever, Valerie had what we hoped would be her final doctor's appointment on Friday, March 30; a date otherwise known as the due date for our PTBNL. The exam was disappointing, as Valerie was still dilated just 3cm, just as she had been for weeks. "Go home," she said, "talk a walk, have sex, do whatever you need to do. Then gather your things and go to the hospital if you feel anything at all." Still, Valerie was worried the hospital staff would send her home unless she was really in labor. We went to lunch, went for a walk, then collected the kids from school and packed their bags for grandma's house and at roughly 4:30 pm, we showed up at the hospital, ready to have a baby.
The nurses were great, both the day shift nurse and the one who guided us the rest of the way. The started her on pitocin to set the labor in motion and eventually Valerie opted for the epidural as well. Things weren't progressing much at all, however, and eventually the baby was having trouble breathing through the contractions. The nurse tried placing my wife in different positions to take the strain off the baby, but nothing was working. Finally, she had Valerie get on all fours and began re-filling her fluids, in an attempt to get the baby to "float" off of the umbilical cord. After a brutal half an hour in this position, Valerie was re-checked and her dilation was complete. From 6cm to 10 in just that half hour. Quite suddenly, it was showtime.
One "practice" push, as they called it, got the baby all the way down the birth canal. After waiting for almost a full minute to allow the doctor time to remove the monitor and all the other lines in the way, the next push produced the baby's head. A quick bit of work by the doctor unwrapped the cord from around his little neck and two pushes later, our son was born.
Atticus Ty joined our family at 12:38 am, just thirty-eight minutes past his due date. He weighed 8 lbs 13 oz (two ounces less than Amity had) and was a whopping 22 inches long. His hands and feet were large and so was his head, which measured 15 inches around. Ouch.
As I said, all that happened ten days ago. In the meantime, life at home has been unusual in some ways and exactly the same in others. Atticus sleeps a lot and he doesn't really cry all that much. He seems pretty relaxed from what I can tell. His siblings seem to like him well enough, though Sebastian took a while to warm up to the idea of yet another new baby. Amity is enthralled by him.
Dad and Vickie came to town this past weekend and came to the house twice. It was as if they'd never left. Unfortunately, they left us again to head back to Florida. I'm not sure they mentioned when they'd be back again. The kids miss them. So do I. Everybody does, really. But the time we had this week was great and I can't wait for the next visit.
So far, Valerie and Atticus seem to have worked out a pretty good feeding schedule. As soon as he even whimpers, she scoops him up for a quick snack and before he even realizes it, he's asleep once again. Thankfully, she's been letting me sleep through this. In turn, I've been up to take the kids to school each day as needed. It's not fun, but it's the least I can do.
I'm not sure who he looks like. The majority say Amity, but I see some Leyton faces there as well. He's a good looking kid, I think. He just looks like Atticus. He's so tiny and yet so big. As far as the name, everyone seems to love it, surprisingly enough.
I think we did good, Babe.
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