Hello, Jack!

No, baby boy did not come on his own. I really, really wanted him, too. Things went so well with Norah coming on her own, and I was afraid that inducing would just mess things up. Plus, it was so exciting to think that, at any moment, I could go into labor (though I knew that wasn't super likely considering how little progress my doctor had said I made three weeks in a row). Knowing when the baby would arrive kind of took some of the fun out of it for me. But I REALLY couldn't imagine going on with being pregnant any longer. So, my doctor and I set the date to be induced for Monday, May 11, at noon.

Right before we headed to the hospital. (Actually, we went to Best Buy first to get a birthday present for Norah, then we headed to the hospital.) I was so huge!

About to start the pitocin.

Okay, so here's a little bit of the birth story. Feel free to skip ahead to the pictures if you don't feel like reading.

I really had nothing to worry about with being induced. Things all went smoothly. It was actually incredibly boring. Rich and I brought "The Office" to watch, but even that only kept us entertained for so long. Also, the A/C was broken on the labor and delivery half of the hospital. It wasn't too hot outside, but we were on an upper floor and started to feel it after a while. They did bring in a fan, which helped, but we still noticed a huge difference when we headed over to the maternity ward on the other half of the hospital later that night. My epidural started to wear off on one side towards the end, so they upped the dosage, which helped and also made me ridiculously numb on the opposite side. But that's about it.

By about 9:45 that night, baby boy was just about here. My doctor came, and I pushed for maybe 15 minutes before Jack Helding Nelson made his arrival at 10:08.

The first thing I noticed, though, was that his color looked completely different from Norah's when she was born - he was really blue. I found out later that the cord had been wrapped around his neck and he'd swallowed some gunk on his way out.

We'd planned to do skin to skin right when he came, but they had to change plans. They placed him on me and began to massage him, pushing crazy hard. I realized later they were trying to get him to cry to get his breathing going. He'd cry a little, and his color would get a little more normal, but then he'd stop crying again and he'd get really pale, almost gray.

When the doctor realized that the cord was around his neck during delivery, he'd called in a special team in case things were serious. He'd told Rich not to worry when a bunch of people came frantically running in. When they couldn't get some good color from Jack after he was born, they took him to the warming table where they worked on him a little and were able to get things going pretty normally. They called in a couple specialists, but it seemed as soon as one would get to the room, everything would stabilize. Then his heart rate would spike or his breathing would dip, they'd call in another specialist, and things would stabilize again.

The doctor and nurse kept reassuring me that there wasn't really anything to worry about, that they just wanted to get him steady before I held him and they did all of the measurements and stuff. I was never really worried because I figured they'd take him out of the room if there was a real problem. I just kept my eyes on the warming table, waiting for my turn. When I finally got to hold Jack, his color was back to normal, and he was all snuggled up in his blanket.

It took a long time to finally get his measurements. When my doctor delivered him, he said that he was a pretty good-sized boy. I didn't know what that meant. I was SHOCKED when I finally found out: 9 pounds, 11 ounces! (FYI, that's what I weighed when I was born. I guess it was payback.) He was 20.5 inches long (although it got recorded as 19.5 inches on some documents, too). My doctor had already gone by the time they weighed Jack, so he was pretty surprised at his weight when I told him the next day!

I knew he was going to be big, but I thought maybe in the high 8-pound range. I had no idea he'd be close to 10 pounds! There's no way I'm going the full 40 weeks with any future kids! (Although, I can't really complain too much because I did have an epidural. My mom delivered me sans medication. You go, Mom! And, my sister-in-law Carolyn delivered a baby over 10 pounds. It definitely could have been worse.) I'm scared to think how big he would have been if I had waited to go into labor naturally.

Jack's first picture, on the warming table, still trying to get things going normally for him.

Finally all cleaned off and ready to snuggle

This kid was practically born with a scowl. This look really made him look so much different than Norah.

When we had Norah, the only family around were Rich's parents, so they were our only visitors in the hospital. With so much family in Utah, we had a lot more visitors this time around that came over the next two days.

Our first visitors were my mom and Norah. She loved him from the start. We couldn't get her to hold him (she still won't), but she was happy to give him a kiss!

 We were so excited to see our visitors and have them meet Jack for the first time!

We were in the hospital for two days and headed home on May 13. When it was time to get Jack dressed to go home, I was surprised and relieved to find that he did indeed fit in newborn clothes, meaning he actually had something to wear.

 (All of these pictures have him with his binky. That's kind of weird because he didn't much care for it in the hospital and, even now, he still doesn't really love it.)

So, that's a little bit about how Jack was born and how Rich and I became parents of two! Stay tuned for even more pictures of the (not so) little guy!