Bringing Up The Rear With Zachary Nathaniel

**midori_** · 12-31-2011, 10:23 PM

So, around 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 12/27, I woke up with contractions. I wasn't expecting a daytime baby, and little Z has been pretty casual about getting into position and everything, so I figured that my little guy was just getting himself situated and warmed up, but nothing much would happen during the day. I tried sleeping off and on, but it wasn't really happening, so I was up by 7 that morning. I figured the contractions would peter out as I got on with my day.

DS1 was a handful that morning, and I didn't have the energy to play Human Jungle Gym with him, so I caved and called Grandma over to play Grandma that morning. She whisked him off to her house. My sister, who's been staying with us to help on miscellaneous projects for a bit, asked me as I was retreating upstairs, "Are you feeling okay?" She asked me right in the middle of a contraction, and I snapped at her, "Awful! Go away!" I realized that was a little harsh; she didn't know, lol. So I opened the door behind me and added, "Love ya!"

I passed the next hour or so distracting myself by timing my contractions. Called my mw-- they were about a minute and a half long, about five minutes apart, and asked what my numbers needed to be in order to come in. She told me, "You've got a drive ahead of you, so how about if you come in when you don't like the idea of being in the car, rather than looking for a particular number?" That made good sense.

DH had to go in to work that morning, but I finally caved around 11:00'ish, and called him and said, "Hey, can you come home before lunch?" He wanted to know if I wanted my sister to drive me, and we'd meet at the birth center, or if I wanted him to drive me... I chose him, of course.

He was home by 11:30, and we made our way down the road. We chatted a bit in between contractions, and I passed the time with my Hypnobabies tracks I'd put on my MP3 player. I didn't practice very well this pregnancy at all, but it was still a nice distraction and made the drive go quickly.

We arrived at 1:05.

I wanted the birth tub, but was concerned about pooping in it, lol. (I'd been doing my contractions on the toilet for about an hour before we left, but never did manage to poop. So it was something I wanted to take care of before I got comfy in the tub.) So I popped over to their toilet (ah, familiar toilet where I spent quite a bit of time on for DS1!) and did some contractions over there. Oops, suddenly I was nauseous. Dry heaves. A minute or two later-- Ooops, I remember calling out, "Water broke!"

They wanted to hustle me off to the tub. I couldn't birth the baby on the toilet. What were they concerned about? It was way too soon to think about that... I'd totally skipped the mucous plug bit, no bloody show, no nothing... tried to remember how long things took with DS1 between water breaking and his being born, but drew a blank.

Less than 30 min after arrival at the birth center, Zachary Nathaniel arrived, too.

Never even got to turn on the jets...

He was an angry-looking little guy when he was brand-new. Would have made an awesome gangster/mobster baby; no neck, and shaped like a linebacker. Still has a habit of looking like he's plotting revenge, but he's softening up with time. 8 lbs, 7 oz, and 21 1/4 inches long... the same length as DS1, but heavier... but much more compact.

Here's a pic of him in Soft Baby Mode...