he's here!

Colin Matthew was born at 1:11 pm on his due date, Friday, June 26th! (He’s the first person in our family to arrive on time for anything.) He weighed 8 lbs and measured 20 inches long.

My labor started around 1 am Friday morning. I woke Dan at 3 am and we left for the hospital. Fortunately, my mom has been staying with us since the previous Friday (after a 2 week quarantine at home), so we didn’t have to wake Mae or call neighbors before leaving for the hospital. I was 6 cm dilated upon arrival to the hospital and in a decent amount of pain, so they quickly hooked up my IV and prepped me for an epidural. I had more anxiety about the epidural procedure than any other part of labor since my last experience was so traumatic. I sobbed through the whole thing, but it was uneventful and, more importantly, it worked!

Overnight, I rested while watching “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and had my COVID test. They warned me it would be “uncomfortable” but I was expecting it to be more “swabby” and not nearly so “poky.” It felt like they were jabbing a coffee stir stick into my brain. Not fun. At least it was negative so I didn’t end up in isolation.

The doctor broke my water around 8:30 am. I felt so lucky that the doctor on call all weekend was the same doctor who had held my hand through the very stressful beginning of this pregnancy. While this is my second live birth, it’s my fifth pregnancy and was preceded by two back-to-back miscarriages. This doctor was so reassuring and helpful throughout the whole pregnancy, birth, and hospital stay.

I only pushed for about 10 minutes and thankfully avoided an “operative” delivery with forceps like last time. Colin was born healthy and screaming like a champ!

We stayed in the hospital for 2 days and took full advantage of the nursery to get some sleep overnight. We came home to a VERY excited big sister. Mae was hyper-ventillating with excitement to meet her baby brother (and to show us how well she had cleaned up the playroom.) Adjusting to life with a newborn and a toddler has been a lot easier with my mom helping out, but we are slowly working into a routine!

P.S. I'm going to need to work a little harder to come up with blog title puns for the name Colin than I did for Mae!

P.P.S. If I can birth an 8 lb baby while wearing a mask, you can wear one to the grocery store.