Thomas

Right now Emily is feeding Thomas (she does a lot of that lately) and I am sitting on the bed with my laptop. Both of us feel much more rested because Thomas slept in 5-6 hour shifts for the past two nights. What a difference a good nights sleep makes (for Em and I). I will briefly recap the past couple weeks and provide a lot of pictures of our son.

As Emily's due date (Halloween) approached, there were no signs of Thomas coming in the near future. Every time we went to the doctor, she wasn't dilated or effaced. I could tell this was especially hard for Emily because both of us figured that she would be early because that is how her sisters' births went. Plus, Em had bought some Halloween outfits that she wanted so badly to try on Thomas :). It was also hard because Emily's mom, Laura, wanted to book tickets to come out and help with the baby, and my mom was in the same position.

On our visit shortly after Emily's due date, the doctor told us that we should schedule an induction in case Thomas doesn't come on his own. We scheduled it for November 10 because that was the latest they would let us go (I think November 11, 11/11/11, was all booked up, and then it was a weekend after that). So with the scheduled induction, my mom decided to come out for about two weeks with Laura coming for about 4 days right around the induction.

I felt like it was hard to focus on the days before November 10th. I tried to get as much homework done but my mind was anxious (in a good way) for Thomas to come. Emily went on a walk everyday, sometimes going twice. It was great having my mom around. We hadn't seen her in over a year. She helped us prepare our house even more for the baby. We put together some shelving, organized our kitchen, cleaned the house, etc. She was incredibly helpful. She also cooked all of the meals and did the dishes so that I could focus more on my studies.

On November 8th, we had a doctor's appointment and Em still wasn't dilated. So they told us we would go to the hospital in the evening on the 9th and Em would get a foley catheter that would ripen her cervix overnight. The following morning, they would then get her on pitocin to start her labor. Well, Wednesday night came and the hospital wasn't calling. We finally called them and they said that they were too full and that we would likely come in around midnight or the next day. Thursday, the 10th, came around and we still hadn't heard. So we went out on another walk and while we were walking, we got the call around 9:30 am that they had a bed open. We raced home, got our stuff, and headed to the hospital. Here is a picture of us in the hospital waiting to see a nurse.

Here is a picture of us right before the she was induced.

Emily was given the foley catheter around 12:30 pm and they started her on pitocin at the same time. Em was a little stressed because of all the things we had heard in our baby classes about natural births vs induced births. She was particularly scared about getting a c-section. Around 2:30pm Laura and Emily's youngest sister Liza showed up. It was great seeing them. Laura had a positive, happy energy about her that I think helped Em. The next 10 hours or so were fairly uneventful. We watched three different movies (only happy ones by Em's request), got her liquids and popsicles, and visited. As the evening went on, Emily actually became quieter and more subdued. She was much more inward that that I had thought she would be. I find it funny how many people on my side and Emily's side who were asking how I was doing in terms of fainting or getting queezy. I was a little (very little) nervous about getting faint but overall I figured that I would be fine. I was mostly right. The only part of the night that I got queezy was when Em got the epidural. They only allowed one person in the room so I stayed in and held Emily's hand while she got the epidural. I knew I shouldn't watch so I didn't. Instead, I sat with my head down next to Em. Unfortunately, to me at least, the anesthesiologist decided to describe every step of the process, "Ok, now the needle is piercing your skin, it is a fairly large one, you should feel a slight pain,...,the fluid is entering your spine, you should feel a unique sensation,..." I immediately felt light-headed and had to put my head between my legs.

The foley was supposed to slide out on its own but it wasn't coming out. Laura kept saying that she thought Em should be dilated enough for it to come out by this point. The nurse decided to look and sure enough, it should have come out. So she said that she was going to have to pull it out. By this point, Em had not received the epidural. When the nurse was pulling the foley out, it was hard to watch. I had never seen Em in that much pain before. I tried to do what I could to comfort her but it didn't seem to help. In my mind I was thinking how grateful I was that she would be getting an epidural soon.

Once the epidural kicked in, Em did much better. She was still quiet the whole night, but at least she wasn't in pain. Around 11:00 pm, the nurse checked her and she was dilated to a 10 so they decided to start pushing. Em did a great job through this whole process. She said this was the hardest part for her, not pain-wise, but energy-wise. She pushed and pushed until 11:30 pm when the doctor came in to finish it out. She gave us the option of of waiting until midnight to have the baby (so he could be born on 11/11/11) but Em firmly said no thanks. At 11:39 pm, Thomas Young Ferguson was born. I was so proud of Emily during the whole process. She had quite a few fears going in, but once things started going, you would have never guessed.

Thomas weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21.5 inches long. He has red hair and the most surprising part about him was how much of it he had. Here are some pictures.

This next one is right after he was cleaned. The nurse gave him a mohawk - there were tons of people talking about his hair and taking pictures.

Emily right after the delivery.

Some pictures from the next morning.

My mom with Thomas,

Laura and Liza,

My sister Heather (who lives here in Raleigh and has been invaluable through this whole process)

My niece Brinley, Heather's oldest.

We left the hospital Saturday afternoon. Overall the hospital staff was great and Em always felt like she was in good hands.

It has been a lot of fun being parents. So far he seems like a pretty good baby in terms of sleeping and crying. There have been a couple of nights that he didn't sleep too well but we had Laura and my mom here to help out if he was crying too much. My favorite thing he does is when he starts staring off into the room looking at things. He gets real quiet and appears to be soaking everything in. I also enjoy watching Emily with him. As I have been married to Em for almost three years now, I have learned many new things about her. But one thing that I have always known is her natural motherly instincts. The way she holds Thomas and talks to him, or the way she feeds him or the way she watches him, all display a deep concern and love for him. I never felt nervous about having a baby (by 'have' I mean to have a newborn to take care of - not giving birth) because I trust Em so much in this area. This doesn't mean that I let her do everything, because I don't (diapers seem to be one of my primary jobs), its just that I feel like everything with Thomas will turn out great because he has Emily as his mother.

With Laura and my mom here the following week, I was able to get caught up on a lot of homework because I didn't need to take care of other things around the house. It was a huge help.

Here are some pics of the bath we gave him the other day.

And one of him trying to burp

Yesterday we decided to take him on a walk around the lake near our house.

We feel very lucky about how smoothly everything went and that we have a healthy son. We are excited to start our new lives as parents and look forward to having more kids in the future. We are also very grateful for the friends and family who have helped out in the past couple of weeks, they made life more enjoyable while we were adjusting to new schedules and responsibilities.