noah matthew king

surprise! while i originally thought that my next post would be the 36 week post, our little man had made other plans. noah matthew king was born at 5:19 pm weighing in at 6 lbs. 4 oz. and measuring 20 inches long on february 24, 2011.

(the rest of this post chronicles the events leading up to his delivery and birth, so if you aren't interested in that you can skip to the pictures by clicking the photo below.)

noah matthew king

if you were surprised by the news....so were we! before i go into the actual story of his arrival, let me preface this by saying that the week, and even the night, before his arrival there were no indications that he would decide to be a february baby instead of a march kid. the only "abnormal" before his arrival was that i actually had several days off from work. instead of my usual hectic schedule, i was off from children's for a whole 5 days in a row (i worked my last shift on friday and wasn't supposed to be back until thursday night). AKUC had only scheduled me for the monday in the middle of that stretch of time off, so i was trying my best to get some stuff taken care of before the birth. still left on my to-do list as we went to bed on wednesday night: choose a pediatrician, pack the bag for the delivery, install the car seat.

the day before noah's birth, matt and i met a friend for lunch, matt went to work and i ran some errands and then headed over to my parents' house for dinner with them and all 6 of my nieces and nephews. i left, picked up matt at work and we decided to hang out at a starbucks for a while before heading home. once we were home, we realized we should take advantage of the nice weather and took a walk (we later calculated it to be about 1 mile) around the neighborhood with lexi. once home we got ready for bed, knowing that the next day was going to be a long work-day for both of us. the last thing i said before i turned out the light was, "he just has to stay in there one more week so we can deliver at the birthing center." and then to my belly, "do you hear that? one more week and then you can show up any time you want." we fell asleep around 4:15 am.

on thursday morning i woke up at 10:00 am with the usual end-of-pregnancy i-have-to-pee-right-now bladder. when i got to the bathroom, i realized my water had broken but sat there for several minutes in disbelief, trying to convince myself that there was no possible way it could be true. my medical brain battled with my desire to have this baby naturally at the birthing center and i struggled with what to do next. as i walked back to bed, i started having contractions...and realized that these were *real* contractions, not the false-labor kind. i lay in bed for several minutes trying to figure out what to do: wake up matt? call the birthing center? call my sisters or my mom? go back to sleep? i finally decided i should walk around and see if that made the contractions go away. no luck, they came regularly and were strong. i walked back to the bedroom and matt woke up, obviously wondering why i was standing at the bedside at 10:15 in the morning.

when he asked what was wrong, i answered that i thought my water had broken. he jumped out of bed and picked up the phone, ready to call the midwife. i stopped him, knowing full-well that as soon as i admitted i was in labor at (exactly) 36 weeks, it would most likely mean at trip to the hospital and the very likely possibility of not being able to labor and deliver naturally. i cried at the realization, but after some coaxing from matt, we decided to call our (amazing!) childbirth instructor, stacy. she advised us to contact the birthing center so they could check to see if my water had truly broken and offered some words of encouragement. she reminded me that if my water really was broken, it was good to have contractions. before we got off the phone with her i told matt to tell her that if we were headed to the hospital she would be getting a call from us, and i would want her to be there. she agreed.

we called the birthing center next and were told to come in. we changed clothes, grabbed a snack and headed over. our midwife amy was amazing. she was completely supportive and knew that i was struggling with the situation. her exam only verified what i already knew and didn't want to admit...my water was broken, my contractions were real, and we were going to have to have our baby at the hospital. i cried... a lot. amy arranged for our transfer to the hospital and told us that they would be expecting us in 1.5 - 2 hours. she had explained to the accepting physician that we hadn't packed a bag or installed the car seat. we headed home to get things together and called a few people to let them know what was going on.

we got home right at noon and i attempted to eat (knowing i wouldn't be able to at the hospital, and expecting a long labor ahead). i managed to eat a waffle and drink some orange juice before my appetite was gone and my contractions kicked into high gear. matt was wonderful, constantly coaching, encouraging and keeping me moving to make my labor progress as much as possible before we left. we walked a lot: around the yard, throughout the house and to the point that i couldn't walk any more. we finally left for the hospital sometime shortly after 3 pm. we parked at the far end of the parking lot and walked in, refusing the wheelchair.

when we got to L&D, matt filled out the paperwork and we met the nurse and the doctor, they explained what to expect. fortunately, they didn't want to do anything except let me labor and put in a saline lock IV since i hadn't yet been tested for GBS (that was scheduled for my next appointment), i would have to receive antibiotics in labor to prevent noah from getting an infection. they also wanted to do a 20 minute non-stress test to check noah's heart rate and the strength of my contractions and a quick sono to make sure noah was still in the head-down position. fortunately, the sono showed a healthy little boy, still head down. they put me on the monitors for the non-stress test and, according to matt, i didn't even make it the full 20 minutes before i felt like i needed to push. i changed position from the rocking chair to the bed and matt notified the nurse. about that time, stacy showed up to help coach me and a few minutes later, so did amy. i had the best support team available, and by 5:19 pm noah matthew had entered the world: healthy, screaming and a full month ahead of schedule. i joke with matt now that he must have his father's sense of timing -- according to matt, being on time means being 20 minutes early -- clearly, noah felt the same way about his due date!

even though he arrived early, noah had no complications, ate like a champ, and didn't have to go to the NICU. they did have to do a CBC (a blood test) to check for infection since he arrived sooner than expected -- i guess they thought they were going to have enough time during my labor to give me 2 doses of antibiotics and i barely received the first dose in time! the labor was so fast, that we weren't even able to notify our families until after he arrived. that night we were able to show off our little man to most of the family (here in texas), and then get some rest during the night. after 24 hours of observation for mom & baby we were able to go home and enjoy some time as a new family.

thanks to everyone who prayed for us and little noah! we appreciate all your love and support!