baby!

Samuel Shepherd Rowan was born 6:23 am on Friday Apr 13th. (We are not sure yet whether we will call him Sam or Shep and we could be influenced by your vote.) He weighed 6 lbs 1 oz, measured 19 inches, and was very aware of his surroundings! He has really big eyes that are always looking out and around, sucking in everything, except when he is sleeping (which he could do more of) and nursing (which he wants to do all the time).

We finally got home from the hospital on Monday afternoon after a rough extra day and night spent there. Amanda was being treated for infection and Sam/Shep was a bit jaundiced so he spent a somewhat tortured night unwrapped and away from his mum under a special blue light. But Monday morning he was just fine and normal and Amanda was sufficiently afebrile. We are all very happy to be home and, after a bit of nursing, we celebrated by taking an uninterrupted two-hour-long nap—literally the longest nap of Sam/Shep's life!

Amanda is good, if a bit sleep deprived, and very happy to be home. On Thursday morning we went in for our regular appointment with the midwife and she was a bit concerned about Amanda's dangerously high blood pressure and had us go up to the hospital. After a long day of testing and deliberating with another midwife, we decided to induce her at about 5 p.m. with this vaginal pill called Cytotec. After four hours of that, Amanda was well effaced but not any more dilated or having much in the way of contractions. So at about 10 p.m., they gave her Pitocin. About an hour later she has having some pretty intense and consistent contractions but she wanted to try to labor naturally, which was part of her original birth plan. She did really well even as the contractions got more and more intense. Finally at about 3 a.m., she was dilated to 5 cm and decided to get an epidural. After that she was able to relax though she never fell asleep. Things went really fast after that! By 4:30 she was completely open and started pushing and by a little after 6 a.m. she had a baby in her arms. Amanda was a little disappointed that things did not go as she had planned (she wanted to go into labor naturally and labor at home for a while before coming to the hospital), but she was able to avoid a C-section and the baby is very healthy.

And now for some pictures, in chronological order: