Happy birthday baby Aaron!

Today at 2:35am, Aaron Miles was born! He weighed in at 8 pounds, 9 ounces - Kyle and Emily's exact birth weight combined and stretched out at 21 inches long! 

Labor wasn't super long despite going to the hospital on Sunday March 11th around 10am because my water broke. It took me a while to realize that is what had happened and that I wasn't just incontinent. :-) So we took showers, got the kids off to a friend's house and headed to the hospital. I think Jeff was more nervous and rushed than me. He told me what he was most nervous about was me without an epidural!  (I can't blame him!) Things happened fast with Kyle and Emily, hence his rush. And believe me, I wanted an epidural too, but I also wanted my morning shower since it could be another day until I could get one next.

So we headed out, got to the hospital, checked in, confirmed my water had indeed broken, watched some basketball, had lunch (thankfully! I didn't eat breakfast) and started pitocin around 3pm since I wasn't contracting enough (or at all) on my own. Got an epidural sometime that evening around 4cm when contractions really hurt. Hung out, slept and played games for a few more hours. We had a fabulous nurse named Mamet who was the best L&D nurse - she was calm, prepared and informative without being alarming. There were some times with Aaron wasn't responding how he should and there was never any panic by her, always pre-emptive measures to make and keep things on the right path. She even let us sleep. We woke around 2am and it was game time. Dr. Cunningham had been called and was arriving for delivery. Knowing Jeff and myself, 2am isn't exactly our hour - well Jeff is decent at that hour since he often works at that time, but I'm typically looooong asleep. But this 2am was well worth it. 2:35 our baby Aaron entered the world.

Hospital check in belly shot - baby sitting much lower here without the water intact

Just born

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This delivery was so different than the twin's delivery. So much calmer and less chaos in the room since he wasn't preterm and wasn't a multiple birth. I got to hold him right after he arrived - all warm, wet and slimy and even more real than when he was moving around in my belly.  Jeff got to cut the umbilical cord. And the relief on my body was instant. He was sitting on something inside me that wasn't so comfortable for some time so it was amazing how quickly the relief came. He has all 10 toes and 10 fingers and a perfect little face and is still a boy (as seen in the 18 week ultrasound). He was a little bruised, like Emily was when she was born due to a quick arrival. I think they call it a precipitous delivery (though from googling it, it was not scary or emergent as it's described - well at least it wasn't to my knowledge thankfully!) - he basically just delivered fast. He cried a little when he came out and as I held him he was suctioned some more to let out a better, less gurgled cry.

We are all overjoyed to welcome him to our family! We love you Aaron!