August's Birth

 

Better late than never, right? I finally sorted through these photos and chose my favorites (so hard to do!) I have a baby attached to me almost all day and all night, so I'll try to make this short and sweet.

I REALLY thought the baby was going to be born a few days after Christmas. I was hoping for a December baby, and I thought I got my wish on Thursday, December 29th when I was having contractions every three minutes after dinner that night. Steve and I packed our bags and drove to the hospital, only to be sent home by my doctor a couple hours later. I fully expected to be back at the hospital within the next day or so, but instead, I didn't feel those same consistent contractions for a full week. On Thursday, January 5th, I was five days past my due date and I went in to the doctor's office for another appointment. He judged me to be at 3 centimeters, and he told me that he would break my water at the hospital. I could either choose Friday morning, or Monday morning, so I went with Friday, obviously. :) 

I came home, relieved to finally know when the baby was coming! I asked Steve to take these photos of me with Ephraim. I wanted to capture his last moments as my youngest baby.

Steve went to lead youth group at 4 pm. Around dinnertime, I started feeling contractions, and they were pretty strong. When Steve got home at 7 pm, I knew that we needed to go to the hospital. They admitted me right away (it helped that I was coming in to get induced the next morning anyway). It turned out that the contractions were real--yay! I got an epidural around 11 pm, and the doctor broke my water soon after.

At 1 am, the doctor came back and asked me how I was feeling. (I was feeling really good with the epidural.) He figured that I would have delivered already. When he checked me, he said I was at 10 cm, and the baby's head was "right there". He called in the nurses, and he asked me to do a practice push. He quickly told me to stop pushing so he could get his gloves on! And at 1:08 am, and with really only one push or so, 

AUGUST DANIEL was born!

August nursed for a long time, and the nurses let me hold him for about two hours before they cleaned him and weighed him.

At 8 pounds, 6 ounces, August was our biggest baby. (Nolan was 8# 2 oz, and Ephraim was 7# 0 oz.)

It was hard to get any sleep because we were enjoying him so much!

The next morning, my mom brought the very-excited older brothers to meet August!

I'm so glad we captured these sweet moments!

Grandma Z meeting the baby.

 

And MorMor holding our little sweet pea.

I can't believe it's already been six weeks! I'm not sure where the time is going, but I know that August is just the most precious little guy, and we are basking in his newborn-ness as long as we can! :) We thank God for such a smooth birth experience and a healthy baby! We don't take that for granted, he is such a blessing!