He’s here!

Ezekiel Richard ~ born Monday, January 14th at 1:57am ~ weight 8lbs 3oz ~ length 21.5in

Our precious baby boy is here! He is absolutely perfect and is blending into our family just wonderfully. I know most of you are here for the pictures, so I'll start there and then share Zeke's birth story :)

Zeke's first moments - being weighed, right after birth, and having his newborn exam

Family of 5! Tay is super excited about baby brother, she was just upset that Noah got to hold Zeke :)

Sweet baby boy

One happy big sister...who happened to wake up at 3:30am to greet her new brother :)

Big bro!

Meeting cousins and grandmommy for the first time. 

First adjustment

Zeke's Birth Story

This pregnancy was a rough one. Between being super tired, sick, and the back aches, I was ready for our baby boy to come. 

The last few weeks of Zeke’s pregnancy, I had more Braxton Hicks than I did with any other baby. There were 2 nights I thought I may be going into labor only to be let down when the contractions became more spread out and less painful. One of these nights I even called our midwife at 3am thinking that labor had begun. I asked her to wait another hour before she came to our house. Within 15 minutes of getting off the phone with her, my contractions had almost stopped coming completely.   

The day Zeke came, I had been having Braxton Hicks on and off. They were sporadic and just enough to be noticeable. 

I went to bed around 9:15 with the contractions still coming. A little before 11:00, I decided to start timing them. They were coming every 6 to 7 minutes and were becoming more painful. At that point I got in our bath tub for about 20 minutes. The contractions were coming every 5 minutes and I needed to breathe through them. Once I got out of the tub, around 11:40, I knew I was in labor. The contractions were hard and came about every 3 minutes. A little after midnight we called the midwife and asked her to come over. She immediately said “I’m on my way”. Forty minutes later she was at our house and I was at 8 centimeters. 

During this time, Mark was working on filling up the birthing pool. But we had one problem…our hot water heater went out. The tub was only half way full and there was no hot water left. So everyone (midwife, her assistant, our doula, and Mark) began boiling water. I went ahead and got in the tub, but it was chilly and uncomfortable. As the boiling pots of water got dumped in, it was more and more bearable. 

I got in the birthing pool around 1:00am and I was in some serious pain! I remember our doula speaking encouraging words and bible versus and coaching me through the breathing. Mark was holding my hands and speaking encouraging words over me. As painful as the contractions were, having them there helped me get through them.

Around 1:45am, I began to feel the urge to push. I waited as long as I could and began to push about 5 minutes later. At the first push, my bag of waters broke. It took several more pushes for him to come and it was definitely the hardest part of my labor. 

Zeke was born at 1:57am on Monday morning. He came out with the cord wrapped twice around his neck and twice around his body. It took one agonizing minute for our midwife to unwrap it and for him to begin to cry. It may have been the longest minute of my life. But exactly one minute after he was born, we heard that beautiful sound that all parents love to hear, our baby’s first scream. It was a wonderful noise. 

My mom arrived at our house around 2:20am. When she got here she asked Mark "How far along is she?" . Mark said "0". Then it clicked for my mom. She had missed my delivery...again.

Both of our children slept through the entire labor and delivery. And let me go ahead and say it was NOT because I was quiet. However, Tay did wake up at 3:30am. She came into our room and was a bit overwhelmed by all the people. She came into bed with me and Zeke and after about 2 minutes grasped what was going on. When she realized her baby brother was here, her face lit up and she immediately wanted to hold him. In all of her excitement, she did not go back to bed that night. She is one magnificent big sister :)

When Noah woke up the next morning he decided that breakfast was a bit more important than meeting his little brother. But once he made his way into our bedroom and saw Zeke, he was ready to hold him and give him lots of sweet kisses. 

I have been asked if I would do a water birth again. My answer is probably not. I was hoping that the water would provide relaxation and help with the contractions. But after having one in the water and one out, I have to say that I don’t think there was a difference. 

And if you ask me if I would have another natural birth, my answer would be heck no! Hum…I guess I said the same thing after Noah and I obviously did not stick to that. Mark’s grandma said that “labor is the worst pain and the easiest to forget”. I am going to have to agree with that. Labor pains are AWFUL, but the reward is so sweet it is easy to forget.