Our little boy

Wednesday, 17 August 2005 (Day 7)

The day began innocently enough. Kristin, her mom, dad, and sister went sight seeing on Tuesday (August 9th), while I stayed home and prepared gear for an arctic expedition leaving the next week. While at the Santa Claus house in North Pole, however, Kristin began feeling ill and decided it might be best to return home and relax.

I don't know if Mrs. Claus ever felt like this or not?

That night, it appeared the time had finally come for Kristin to lose her small penis. After nine months of watching her belly get bigger and bigger (click here to see) and several days of Mike, Julie, and Kelly loitering about impatiently, we were all ready for it.

Finally, my chance to run red lights legally...

I didn't run any lights in the end, but we did wave to Mike and Kelly in front of the Klondike Inn on the way here.

Once we arrived at the hospital, about 9PM, a nurse checked us over. I was doing fine, but Kristin had sharp pains every few minutes. Much to Kristin's disappointment, we learned she was only 1 cm dilated. Apparently it takes about 10 cm to have a baby, with a 1 cm per hour average rate of increase, meaning that the pain was likely to continue (and get worse) for quite some time. We called Julie and Kelly, who came by to visit, and think we talked to Mike on the phone, but it wasnt clear. It seemed like we were in for a long night, so the family went back to the hotel as Kristin and I played with the hospital's toys.

This machine actually does go "bing" if you fool with it enough. I don't think Kristin (or the hospital staff) noticed though.

At 4:30 in the morning, Kristin had only reached 3 cm. Real labor had long since started though, as there wasn't much joking around going on since the others had left. The pain was quite intense, and epidurals were mentioned several times. As things go, this early labor was supposed to be the easy part. No one was looking forward to the hard part.

Essentially the whole night was spent on the bouncy ball.

By the time the 6AM checkup occurred, suggestions of pain relief were being taken much more seriously. Amazingly, after spending the whole night on the bouncy ball and bouncing particularly vigorously after the 4:30 check-up, we learned that Kristin was at 8 cm at 6AM. The nurse left immediately to get the delivery cart and call the doctor, saying "don't start pushing until the doctor gets here". I took that as a sign that something different was about to start happening, and called for Julie and Kelly to come back over.

When the doctor arrived about 7AM, Kristin was fully dilated and more than ready to start pushing. We were told that this 'pushing' stage usually took an hour, but that it could range anywhere from minutes to hours.

Pushing is hard -- really hard. Especially without drugs.

Mom kept her fingers crossed the whole time, hoping that every push would be the last.

Three hours later, the pushing was still happening. Kristin was getting exhausted, but putting her last bit of energy into every push. We saw the head right off the bat, but it wasn't really getting any closer. At one point, another doctor about to give a c-section to someone else stopped by to check things out, and at just that time the baby turned and got noticeably closer with a few pushes. We thought it was going to happen any second, but an hour and a half later nothing much had changed. We tried nearly every position imagineable to get something to happen, but nothing seemed to work. We all looked around silently asking the same question to ourselves -- how long this could continue before more drastic action needed to be taken? But then, suddenly, a bit of motion occurred and then with every push noticeable motion was happening.

When the head finally emerged, it kept coming and coming until finally a face appeared. With another push or two, the entire body was out and our little boy took a long look at everyone in the room about 10AM.

Everyone was relieved, especially Kristin. Note the baby under the lamps in the background.

Kristin: "Quick, let's take him and run..."

Minutes after birth. Everyone was happy and healthy.

The Nolan family: Matt, Kristin, and Baby Boy (for now).

Latching on was quick and painless (at least compared to pushing).

He's got a big head...

Best looking boy in the nursery, really...

See?

Getting the GPS and cell phone implanted...

Proud Aunt Kelly and Grandpa Mike.

After a shower and room cleaning, baby and mom enjoy their first milk coma (or colostrum coma anyway).

We finally got to bed about 8PM Wednesday night. It was a pretty full day after the birth, with family visits, nurses prodding and poking, cleaning up, getting to know the baby, etc etc. We all spent the night in the same hospital room he was born in, in a continuous semi-awake state, meeting the needs of the baby and the hospital staff. We didn't care about the sleep really. We held this precious, sweet little boy in our arms all night long. He never cried or fussed, he just slept quietly, ate, or gently looked around the room, taking it all in. He was a happy, healthy little boy, and no amount of sleep deprivation or bothersome nurses could affect our happiness about this.

We woke up that morning ready to leave. Kristin had been feeling great since the birth, and was steadily regaining her strength. It was a bright sunny day outside, and we were ready to return home with our little boy as soon as possible. Before leaving, we stopped to say congratulations to Silke and Felix, who had just had their baby that morning.

He is a very alert little boy, always watching and looking around.

All I can say is that this wasn't my idea, or his...

Unfortunately Kelly and Julie had to leave on our first day back at home. On the other hand, we may never have gotten to hold him ourselves if they hadn't...

Mike had to leave while we were still in the hospital, but Julie and Kelly had another day in town. We spent the afternoon at the house enjoying our new arrival, then dropped them off at the airport. On the way back, we stopped to see our neighbors, then settled in for the first night at home.

Out of both the hospital clothes and polar bear suit, he started looking more like a real little boy instantly.

His head had noticeably returned to a more normal shape within a day.

He hardly ever cried, but he clearly let us know when he was hungry.

The first night at home was a little rough, but not too bad really. Essentially he wanted to eat all the time, with little to no break in between. Having been told by the hospital to limit feedings to 5 minutes, we weren't exactly sure what to do. But we let him do the thinking and just fed him as much as he wanted. By the next day, we felt we had a pretty good handle on how keep him happy and healthy. His muconium passed within a day and Kristin's milk came in that morning, suddenly filling her breasts within an hour or so. By the third night at home, he was sleeping so soundly that we had to wake him to feed lest Kristin explode.