Evan Gabriel King

He's here!  Our sweet baby boy chose his birthday and decided to show up on May 29th, 2014.  That put him at exactly 39 weeks and 1 day, although the midwife said his gestational age assessment put him a little over 40 weeks.  I guess my kids do "cook faster" than other people's ;)

my 39 week pregnancy pic -- in the middle of a contraction :/

snuggles with my baby girl before we head to the birthing center

And yes, we did *finally* decide on a name.  Evan Gabriel King weighed in at 8 lbs and 6 oz, and measured 21 3/4 inches long!  He was born the largest and longest of my children, and had the longest pregnancy of all three.  He was also responsible for my longest labor -- about 8 hours, but he was also my first waterbirth baby.  He's absolutely adorable and I can't wait to see him grow and develop with his siblings.  

When it was apparent that this was true labor, Matt and I started talking about names again -- realizing that our time to decide was quickly drawing to a close -- we mentioned all the names we had talked about before, Evan being one of them, as we drove to the birthing center.  After we had been there for about an hour, Matt asked me about the name Evan Gabriel.  It clicked, just "sounded right" for some reason, which was kind of what I had been hoping and praying for (as the names of our previous children had).  We both agreed we liked it and when that sweet baby boy was placed in my arms, he most certainly seemed like an Evan.  Also, I'm happy to report that Noah seems to have no problems with the name ;)

The full birth story follows, so if you aren't interested in that hopefully you got all the important info from the paragraphs above.

After the several false starts I had talked about in my last pregnancy update I had finally come to terms with the fact that this kiddo didn't seem to be in any hurry to show up.  I had finally relaxed and was content to continue to take the pregnancy one day at a time until it was time for a birth day.  Wednesday was like any other -- I was exhausted since I had worked my usual Monday, Tuesday and then had to stay awake with the kids after I got home so Matt could go to work.  The day was largely uneventful and after I put the kids to bed I decided I would get some cleaning done.  Despite being very tired, it had been driving me crazy for weeks that the bathrooms needed cleaning, the dog was shedding like crazy (thanks, summer time weather), and the laundry needed attention, too.  So I started cleaning, and was still cleaning when Matt got home from work.  I just wanted to finish everything so I "wouldn't have to worry about it tomorrow" I told him.  He left me to my work and enjoyed playing some Madden NFL while I (it's obvious now) was in full-blown nesting mode.  The house was pretty close to spotless when I finally sat down on the couch around 2 am.  I ended up dozing off and slept for several hours on the couch.  When I woke, it was around 5 or 5:30 am and I decided to shower and try to rest in bed for a little bit before the kids woke up.  Of course, being me, I also realized I hadn't put away the last of the clean laundry.  So I showered, then was putting away the laundry when I felt a small gush of fluid -- eek!  I stepped across the bedroom to the bathroom and saw it was all clear fluid, then I waited.  Sure enough I started having super-strong contractions.  It was about 6 am.  Before I called anyone or woke anyone (since there had been so many false starts before), I lay in bed timing contractions for about 30 minutes.  They were averaging 1 minute long and coming roughly every 3 minutes (sometimes 2 minutes, sometimes 4, it was strange).  These were stronger than any other contractions I had felt previously.  I finally decided to wake Matt and notify our doula and friend Stacy.  I called the midwife on call and told her that I could probably labor at home, but I was concerned my water might have broken and that I knew I needed to come in for IV antibiotics (I'm always GBS +). She said that it was better to go ahead and come in for the antibiotics rather than to labor at home.  That was a good thing for me, anyway, because I was concerned that if I stayed at home for too long I would return to "mothering mode" for the older kids and might stall my labor. 

So I called my mom and we got ready to head to the birthing center.  The ride there was uneventful, and we arrived at ABC sometime around 8 am.  The contractions were steady, but I was expecting them to pick up a little more -- thanks to the expectations set by my previous two labors -- and I was a little disappointed that I didn't feel closer to pushing a baby out.  Spoiler alert - my expectations were not going to be met!

a contraction on the birthing ball

We got situated in the room, they started my IV and gave me the first dose of antibiotics.  I walked until I got tired, then sat on the birthing ball, and back and forth for a while.  Stacy arrived and I finally agreed to walk outside for a while, which was nice since it was a nice day.  When we came back in, they offered to check me, which I didn't really want because I was worried I wouldn't be very far along.  6 cm.  Dang.  I was hoping to be at least a 7 and close to, or in transition.  We continued to walk, and finally Stacy offered recommendations to speed things up. We realized that with the back pain I was having that Evan was most likely turned "sunny side up" and not in the most proper position to be born (hence the longer labor).  At this point I stopped paying any attention to the time completely because I realized that this labor was not going to be shorter than my previous two.  After several more contractions I was feeling very tired, and so they recommended I lay on my left side for two reasons 1) it would allow me to rest and 2) it can actually help a baby move his head into the correct position for birth.  I was happy to oblige for both of those reasons.  The midwife did warn me that it would probably be very uncomfortable during contractions because Evan would be shifting.  That turned out to be *very* true.  I was comfortable for about 20 seconds and then had a contraction - ouch! After only a little while on the bed I felt like pushing and got to make my way to the birthing tub.  Bliss!  The water felt so great it almost made me forget about why I was actually there -- until the next contraction.  

Again, because I was so tired I think it took longer for me to push Evan out than it would have otherwise.  I felt like I was running out of energy.  Fortunately, I had such great people around me to support me that at 2:32 pm I was able to push him out and he was born into the water.  Matt was able to hand him to me (he says he "half-caught" Evan) and I was finally able to look at my sweet baby boy.  Matt and I agreed immediately that he looked like an Evan Gabriel :)

my first picture with my new baby boy!

After the birth, we moved to the bed and I got to spend the next couple hours snuggling my brand-new baby while Matt called everyone with the blessed news.  Evan was wonderfully alert and snuggly.  We only had one set of visitors at the birthing center -- Aunt Shari, and cousins Alia and Ben came by to meet Evan before the kids had to go to their dad's house for the night.  My post-delivery meal choice was a schlotzsky's sandwich (it was just down the street), some cookies they included for free when Matt told them we had just had a baby, and a frosty that the Childers brought me! We left the birthing center around 6 pm and were home just in time to interrupt Noah and Samantha's dinner by introducing their new baby brother.  I'm happy to report it was smiles all around!