Meet Our Son

                  Sunday morning, September 19th I felt the need to do a large grocery shopping trip. I never shop on Sundays and certainly not during church. But I felt like this may be my last opportunity. So, I put Hannah in the car and we were off. Shortly after getting home I started feeling like today may be the day. My contractions, although painless, were getting stronger and closer together. I rushed around the house trying to get everything done that I needed. Hannah went with the flow as she usually does, not realizing that her baby brother would be born that night. I informed Jon that he should plan to not work the next three days.
                 As we approached the evening the contractions were still progressing. I called my sister and we decided that she should probably come and stay the night here so we could leave whenever we needed to. She got here around 9:30pm and by then my contractions were the kind that you really need to focus on your breathing to get through the pain (all you moms know what I mean.) But still only 7-10 minutes apart. My wise younger sister, who had been through labor more recently than me, advised me to call my Dr. anyway since they were so strong. The Dr. got right back to me and we were out of the house by 10:00pm. The car ride was not too bad, no DC traffic (God answered my prayers that I would not go into labor during rush hour:)
                We parked in the garage and I was able to walk to registration. This is the only part of my experience at the hospital that made me mad. They had me standing at the desk and slowly printed off all the forms for me to sign which took about 15 minutes. I had two strong contractions while standing there, but was able to get through them ok. Once we finally got upstairs I was at 5 cm and put right into a delivery room. It was not a busy night and my nurse was so attentive and wonderful. They started the process for the epidural right away since my contractions were right on top of each other by that point and I was at 7 cm. Once that kicked in I felt great and was able to have nice conversations with Jon and the nurses- all of whom commented on how I was a different person after the epidual, whatever that means????
                From there things progressed pretty quickly. I was soon at 10 cm and ready for the pushing. This started at 1:30am and ended at 2:04 on Sept. 20 when James Robert Duncan came into the world with relative ease. He was crying right away and earned a 9 for his Apgar test. Then I asked to spend some time alone with him and Jon so I could try to start nursing him. To our amazement he nursed well for about 40 minutes within the first hour of his life. This is when I knew he would be a better eater than our dear Hannah:) He's been doing great very since. Our hospital stay was good and we were ready to leave by Tuesday evening.

               I can't believe he is almost a week old now. He is doing very well at home and we are all enjoying getting to know his little personality already. He's laid back and happy as long as his needs are met. Hannah is in love with him and wants to hold  him as often as possible. We feel so blessed to have a healthy girl and boy. And to have had such wonderful labor and delivery experiences. I went in expecting anything with no real birth plan. I remember praying, when I was getting really uncomfortable, that God would give me the strength to get through to the end which He did in more ways than one. Jon was wonderful as always and such a great support. A special thanks to my parents  and sister who helped watch Hannah while we were in the hospital and once we got out.

               So, this is the last of our "new" things. New house, new job, and new child. Thank you Lord for all things new and old and in all this- You stay the same.