Day 0: Bebe come

This photo was taken at 9:55...talk about an alert little gentleman for only 40 minutes old!

Brandt's estimated due date was April 23rd and I was convinced (and had convinced everyone else) he'd be two weeks late.

Well surprise, surprise...Sunday, April 15th at 9:00 a.m. I thought I may have felt my first real surge (that's Hypnobirthing-speak for "contraction"), but wasn't sure. Fortunately the dogs got me up at 6:30 a.m., right on [their] schedule and I was already finally getting to all the baby preparation stuff I hadn't bothered with all along (washing Brandt's clothes, clearing out drawers for Brandt's stuff, setting up Brandt's room).

Initially, I convinced Dan that even if this was early labor, it was probably the beginning of a two-day labor or just a practice pre-labor that would completely go away. Also, having just heard about another mom calling in six false alarms the week before, I was paranoid about doing the same.

By 12:30 things hadn't slowed down at all so I called the doula, but just to give her a head's up that today might be the day...I wasn't willing to call it the real deal and have her come over and end up feeling dumb about doing the false alarm thing. My slight case of denial also caused me to continue organizing the house rather than getting down to business and practicing my Hypnobirthing techniques. I also wanted to go to the store with Dan to get diapers, but after a bit of discussion, decided I felt safer staying home. Good thing, too--Dan went to the store and by the time he got back at 2:00 p.m. I had finally admitted this could possibly be labor and I wanted him to make the call. I primarily came to this conclusion because I had planned to do some stuff for work I needed to finish up before starting maternity leave and realized I was in no mood to work. Now there's a definite sign of labor!

Dan left a message for the midwives and spoke with the doula again, but we weren't ready to ask her to come over just yet. One of the midwives called back and was already on this side of town so she came by (with her two kids) at 4:30 for a quick check and guess what: no false alarm! Apparently 7 cm dilated and 50% effaced is a bit on the late side to figure out it's go time so she rushed off to drop her kids at the sitter and called the other midwife to head on over. Dan contacted the doula and she raced over with a second doula (sweet--bonus birth attendant!), worried she wouldn't have had time to set up the birth tub in time.

So everyone arrived between 5:30 and 6:00 and by 7:30 I was in the tub and less than two hours later, baby Brandt made his grand entrance!

Brandt arrived at 9:15 p.m. and weighed 6.5 pounds (2.9 kg) and measured 20 inches (50.8 cm) long.