A Son Rises!

Well, that was a long day. But a good one.
At about 10pm last night, my lovely wife jendaby started having contractions. We had just put our daughter to bed and were sitting down to watch a movie--Low Down Dirty Shame on DVD. We think maybe it was the late 80s music that did it. Anyway, she starts having contractions, much stronger than any she’d had before and closer together. At about midnight we figured it was time to call the doctor. The doctor called back an hour to eighty minutes later and said to meet her at the hospital. So off we went. xochitl42 stayed with our daughter while jendaby and I hopped in a car. We got to the hospital at a little before 2am. The doctor was there five minutes later.
And that’s when the fun really started. Because jendaby wasn’t dilated. She was having contractions, most definitely, but without dilation that’s not much help. So we waited for a little while to see if things got better. Five hours, in fact. No change. None. Nada. Zip. At which point the doctor said "right, that’s not going to happen. We’re doing a C-section."
We’d hoped to avoid the C-section this time around, mainly because of recovery time. But it turned out to be the only option this time. So at 7am they wheeled her in. I followed a few minutes--okay, more like half an hour--later.
And at 7:43am on this Saturday, December 24, 2005, Arthur was born.
He’s a fine, healthy lad. And he has a good set of lungs. He’s been active all through the pregnancy and didn’t stop with being born--he was wailing and writhing from the get-go.
Here are the vital stats, for those who like such things:
Gender: Male (we knew that one already)
Length: 20 inches (half an inch longer than his sister was)
Weight: 7 pounds, 12 ounces (ten ounces more than she was)
Hair: Blond. Light blond. Possibly even white-blond--we’ll know in a few days. If so, he could wind up being a redhead like his mom when he gets older.
Eyes: Can’t tell yet.
Mommy and baby are in the hospital (St. Johns Queens--email me for the address or phone number) for the next few days, just to be safe. Both were fine when I left to go home, check on my daughter, clean up, and do things like call people and write this post. They should be home Monday or Tuesday. Then it’s a protracted recovery for jendaby--roughly six weeks before she’s back to full strength and full mobility. We’re hoping a few family members will come up to lend a hand--I’ve got the next week off already, so I’ll be taking care of Adara through the end of the year so jendaby can recuperate and tend to Arthur, but I go back to work at the start of January. We’ll figure it out.
In the meantime, we’re all healthy. And all desperately in need of sleep.