Introducing Gregory Sebastian Fix - born 6/17/07 - Father's Day

Gregory made his entrance today at 8:23am after a brief but intense 3.5 hour labor at home. The vital statistics: 8lbs even, 20 1/4 inches long; lots of blond hair! We were blessed with a wonderful midwife team and my mom in attendance, who just arrived last night around 11pm!! I woke up this morning shortly before 5 with very strong contractions about 5 minutes apart, lasting about 40 seconds each. By 6, they were about 3 minutes apart and a minute to a minute and a half long. Things were progressing very quickly so I called in the midwife and woke my mom and Dan. When the midwife arrived shortly before 6:30, I was getting cleaned up in the shower and was already 6-7cm dilated. Everyone was working quickly to get things set up because things were moving fast and by the time I was able to get into the birth pool I was almost completely dilated. My midwife ended up breaking my water for me, which was helpful because it turned out I had a double membrane that may not have broken on its own! Once that was done, pushing contractions started immediately, but they were more spaced out so I could rest in between. Dan held me up as I pushed a little bit with each one - I didn't want to do too much because it was going too fast and I wanted to slow it down. I went on for about a half hour, and Gregory's head was born. The contraction was over so I sat there that way for a moment and could feel his little ear, and his right hand up at his cheek. Slowly with the next contraction, I felt him turn to my right and then one shoulder and finally the rest of him slipped out. I lifted him up out of the water right away and he gave several good cries and began to pink up. However, the water turned out to be a little too cool for him, so Dan cut the cord after a few minutes and we got out of the pool and got dried off. The placenta came about 30 minutes later and he nursed a little bit shortly after that. I escaped with only two very minor tears requiring one little stitch each - not bad considering how fast he came! It was beautiful and exhilarating for everyone present! Please enjoy the photos - I tried to make sure they were G-rated! The slideshow pans a bit strangely, cutting off some of the pics, but you can go look at the whole album too if you want...



Gregory’s birth