William Thomas Boling

Monday evening, at 5:41, we welcomed William Thomas Boling into the world.  Monday was the day after my due date, and my doctor, who worked that day at the hospital, had told me to come in for an induction if the baby hadn't come already.  I woke up early, fiddled around on the computer, and then woke Daniel up right before we were supposed to leave.  We got to the hospital a little after we had planned, but it was still before 8 AM.

The other times I've gone in to have a baby, they've made me wait in a triage room to see if I'm actually in labor.  This time we went straight to the delivery room, and I got changed, and they started dripping meds into me to start labor.  Later that morning, I'd hardly progressed at all, but I had progressed enough for the doctor to break my water.

Lunch came and went.  I hadn't eaten breakfast, since I'd originally been scheduled for a c-section, and I knew that I might end up having one anyway, since attempting natural birth after a c-section isn't always successful, and the baby was probably close to being too big to attempt (he was, actually, above the recommended limit, but we didn't know that yet).  Daniel went off to get lunch while I got an epidural, and he came back with a tray loaded with food.  He claimed I had told him to come right back.  I might have, especially since I like to know where Dan is when I'm stuck in my hospital bed, and he knows I get anxious if he's missing.  But during labor I was denied anything but ice cubes, although my nurse was willing to give me juice when I first got there, but the juice was sadly all out.  I watched Dan eat and mentally cataloged all the things I was going to have as soon as the baby arrived.

Around 2 my active labor finally started.  I'd been having contractions, but now they were finally getting something done.  Around 5, I was fully dilated, and Dan was asleep on the couch.  He'd been working lots of long days, and he'd gotten pretty run down.  After contemplating throwing my ice cubes at him, I asked the doctor to poke Daniel.

My doctor, as I've mentioned, was the doctor I've been seeing for months, and the nurse who was attending me for the delivery was his nurse from the office, who always took my weight and blood pressure every week.  It was awesome having the two of them there the whole time.  Plus, they are both fun people, and Dan got along great with them.  So, they woke up Dan, and told me to call them when I felt like I really needed to push.  Dan started making phone calls, telling people the baby should come in the next couple hours, and I started feeling like it was time.  The doctor and nurse came back in, and started prepping for the baby.

A few pushes later, and the baby was out.  I was frankly shocked how fast it was.  They wrapped a blanket under him and set him on my tummy.  That's a ten pound baby, the doctor told me.  William was big, and he was dark purple, but he moved a little, and then he started to cry.  Soon he was a nice healthy pink, and the doctor was asking Dan and then me if we wanted to cut the cord.  We both said no, cutting umbilical cords not being something either of us wants to do.

Soon they took William across the room to get clean, and the doctor asked for guesses on weight before they measured William.  I jokingly said 11 pounds.  We were all surprised to find he was 11 pounds, 4 ounces.  His head was 15.5 inches around, a whole inch and a half bigger than both his sisters, and he was 21.5 inches long.

A very big baby, but a very content to sleep and cuddle baby, too.  After a couple days in the hospital, they released us Wednesday afternoon.  We are so happy to have our little boy join our family.