PERIandKEVIN: The day we met our son...

I have hesitated to write any level of birth story because that day is so immensely sacred to Kevin and I. Recently I have been haunted by the thought that I will forget the details, so here is a short and sweet highlight for the sake of Ewan's history.

The hardest part about the end of my pregnancy was the constant calls and texts questioning his arrival. I reassured everyone I would not keep it a secret, but they still asked daily (or more), this boy has been so loved since before he even arrived. Once the due date (March 1st) came and went these questions only multiplied. The funny thing was that I wasn't even anxious for Ewan to come, I knew he would when he was ready and all the nonstress tests were perfect so I just wanted my boy to choose his time. I was very lucky to be comfortable for the duration of my pregnancy, my doctor credits my height for this, the worst part was trying to roll from one side to the other in my sleep with my hips settled and a nearly 10 pound baby resting in my pelvis.

The morning of March 7th I woke up to go to the bathroom and had a very weird feeling in my stomach, it went away and I was quickly back to sleep. The next morning (March 8th, 41 weeks pregnant) I woke up at the exact same time, 5:05am, with the same pain. Sure it would go away I got back in bed and waited through 3 similar pains before waking Kevin. He immediately asked me how far apart the pains were and of course I had no clue so we whipped out the trusty contraction app to realize they were about a minute long every 5 minutes, exactly the threshold our doctor told us to come in at. We wondered what happened to all that prelabor at home stuff we had been told about. By this time it was about 6:00am, and being the ever calm man Kevin sent an email to work saying he wouldn't be in, called the doctor to give her a heads up, took a shower, and packed the rest of my things - all while I laid in bed denying the reality that this would be the day (or the day before depending on how labor went) that I would meet my son. I then mustered up the energy to take a shower, to shave my legs, and to take one last belly shot.

Barefoot and 41 weeks pregnant in our not
quite complete nursery!

By the time we left the house it was a quarter after 7:00am, not the perfect time to be headed southbound on the 101, but oh well this would be our last car ride as a couple so that time in the car was pretty special, we were headed to meet our boy.

My calm cool collected man.

When we arrived at the hospital it was just about 8:00am and the contractions were a solid minute plus and 4 minutes apart. We didn't want to do the valet so we parked our car and headed in. I refused the wheel chair and walked up to labor and delivery, a bit overwhelmed I waited patiently as they checked us in and headed to the monitoring room to check progress. Baby was perfect and I was told I had been working hard and was already 4 centimeters. I was offered the ability to officially be admitted or wander around for awhile, at first I thought I would wander, but didn't want to be exhausted so opted to check-in, so to labor and delivery room 1 we went.

When I couldn't remember to push start I
figured we were good on stats.

The next 4.5 hours are a bit of a blur: we texted a few folks to let them know the status, chatted a lot, the epidural was administered, we watched movies (the dilemma and grown ups) on the entertainment station in our room, surfed the Internet a bit, and played Scrabble on our iPhones while things progressed and contractions continued.

My doctor came in at 1:40pm, when I was supposed to have my next checkup at her office, and I was 8.5 centimeters, so she broke my water. She let me know she would come back at the end of her day to check on us or they would call her based on progress, but that if I delivered after 5:00pm it would be her partner with me, I didn't want that but knew I couldn't control it. Kevin went to get a quick bite per the nurses suggestion and within minutes I was texting him to come back and calling my nurse. When my water broke the flood gates literally opened and this boy was coming. My nurse called the doctor back, she hadn't even made it out of the hospital compound yet, but had to go all the way around due to construction. She came back, took a look, and quickly jogged for scrubs.

Once the pushing began I literally couldn't stop it. Minimal rests were taken between contractions and a little over 10 hours from my first contraction, less than 2 hours after my water was broken, and less than an hour after the pushing started in earnest, Ewan Porter McDonald was born, at 3:33pm to be exact. He measured 22 inches, weighed 9 pounds 13 ounces, and it became obvious very quickly that this world would never be the same.

Ewan after a quick weigh, measure, and clean.

We scheduled visitors for the next day so that after Ewan was all cleaned up we could spend our first evening as a family of three quietly nestled in our hospital room soaking each other in and celebrating together with hugs and kisses and quiet acknowledgement of our miracle.