He's finally here!  I began feeling contractions about 4:30am on January 31st.  They felt more consistent than before so I got up and picked up the house, took a shower and got dressed.  By the time I was finished with all of that I was feeling more and more pain.  I laid down on the sofa and started timing my contractions with a great tool called The Contraction Master and realized they were closer than I thought.  Gary came home from work and we were off to Triage.  We were there about hour and they moved us upstairs to delivery and this show was officially on the road.

 We settled into our room and soon Corie and Stephanie were there.  Early afternoon I was dilated to 4cm and a couple hours later I was already at 9.5cm!  Because his head was still a little high, we waited another hour to see if he would drop more.

Showtime started just after 5pm with "practice" pushes and about 90 minutes later (that felt like 10 minutes) Ethan was here!  He was so quiet.  I expected him to come out screaming and there were a few yelps but he was more interested in getting back to his nap.

Stephanie was so helpful and even chose to stay in the room for the delivery.  She got to be with him while he was getting cleaned up and was one of the first, along with mom and dad, to hold her new little brother.  She sat in the back seat with him on the way home and they've been inseparable.  She comes in the room every few minutes to see if he's done feeding so she can take him back.

Auntie Corie was there helping me, Gary and Stephanie.  It was decided long before delivery day that if we didn't want Gary to pass out, he was going to opt out of cutting the umbilical cord.  So Auntie Corie did the honors!

A short time after delivery we were moved up to post-partum and we were discharged the next day.  We were anxious to get home and settle into our new life with baby.

Sharp was outstanding!  Our nurses were amazing and  it held up to every good word that we heard about it.  The nurses were so responsive and helpful.  The worked so well together and were so accommodating to us.  Gary was even able to get diner delivered to the room at 11pm that night.  Poor guy was starving!

We're tired and getting used to being parents of an infant.  We've really turned out to be a good team and with the help of Ethan's doctor we're learning ways to make life a little easier everyday.

Hope you enjoy these pictures and I look forward to posting more soon!

Click here for the hospital pictures.