Nicholas Joseph Eberhardt
made his arrival Sunday December 6th 2015 at 10:02 am. He weighted 8lbs 5.4 oz and was 20 inches long. We hung out in the hospital for two days and got home on Tuesday to start life as a family of 7! So far he is a good baby, he is pretty content eating, sleeping and pooping all day long. He has had a couple of awake stretches but for the most part likes being snuggly warm and sleeping. We are all in love, although no one more than Annie, and can't wait to continue to get to know him. Here are some pictures from our hospital stay, and if you so desire, feel free to scroll down for the birth story.
Nicholas was born at 10 am and by 2:30 the family and friends started to arrive. We had promised Annie that she could be the 1st person to hold the baby after me and Brandon and we kept our promise. Grandma Mim brought her up before the rest of the boys came with Brandon and she spent a few minuets checking out her newest brother and pretty much fell in love right away. Much to her disapproval, she had to give up her turn holding him and let the rest of the family have a turn.
I love this picture because it shows the chaos of our lives. Samuel was snuggling up on me, not wanting to leave, Elias was telling me some random story, Benjamin was chugging water like a mad man and I was starring off into space, sleep deprived.
Nicholas finally showed us his eyes:)
That evening, Gavin came up to meet his newest cousin as did my dad. Later Kellie stopped up and brought OLIVE GARDEN yum!
Day 2 The family stopped back up to drop off Annie to spend a few hours with me and Nicholas. We hung out, did homeschool and of course, snuggled baby Nicholas. Later in the day, Pam stopped up around the same time as Kellie, so I left Nicholas in capable arms and took a much needed shower!
The hospital stay was long and filled with no sleep so we were SO happy to bust out and go home!
Birth Story
Nicholas made his way into the world in a not so usual for me sort of way. I am your pretty typical laboring kind of gal. I get contractions that start off 20-30 minutes apart, then go to 10 then to 5 then settle into a nice pattern of 2-4 minutes apart then at some point, baby comes! Nicholas decided to really give me a run for my money. I had been having false labor for a few days. The contractions were real but never fell into a pattern and didn't get to the point of having to breathe through so I never became that worried they were real. It did however cause me to loose lots of sleep in discomfort and in wondering if it would turn into anything real. Finally on Saturday I was convinced the day had come. My contractions started off 30 ish minuets apart and slowly decreased down to 7. Granted it took the whole dang day but it wasn't' until dinner time that they picked up in intensity. I had a couple of hours of good solid 3 ish minutes apart and told Brandon we needed to go. I frantically finished cooking dinner and got the rest of our hospital stuff together. Jordan left to go get a bag, since he agreed to stay the night and we were about ready to head out....when I noticed my contractions had tapered off in time but they were still the same intensity..interesting. I decided to wait it out at home for awhile. We put the kids to bed and went about our night. A few more times I would get clusters of 3 min contractions but then they would slow down. I was so confused and had been told not to labor at home long since I go so quick that I finally called my Dr around 9. He told me just to go in and get checked and monitored for an hour and if nothing was happening just to go back home so thats what I did. By the time I got to the hospital my contractions were 10 minutes apart and I almost just turned around but I went in. I was at a 3 and did end up staying just for an hour to be monitored then my Dr. said I could go home if I wanted to and I didn't see any reason to spend my prolonged early labor or potentially false labor, in the hospital.
Once I got back home I told Brandon to go to bed and Jordan to stay because I knew I would be going back soon. I slept a whopping hour that night as the contractions, while still irregular were quite painful! Finally around 6:30am right before the kids woke up, I decided we should go back in. I didn't want them to wake up and then for us to leave and make Jordan's job more difficult. We got up to the hospital got all hooked up got checked....3 cm. You've got to be kidding me. I don't have long labors what the heck was going on! I looked at Brandon and said lets just go home until my water breaks. I have about 20 minuets from when that happens and we can make it. I'm not playing these games anymore. This is such a weird labor for me I clearly have no idea whats going on. He disagreed and so did my Dr. they kept me for an hour and a half for monitoring and were going to check me and if no progress, home we would go. I chilled out on the birthing ball and we chit chatted. The contractions were no different or more regular then they were at home but whatever. Right around 8:30 my contractions fell into a perfect 3 minutes apart fairly intense pattern. I wasn't convinced it was real yet since they really hadn't felt any different then they did the night before when they suddenly stopped. I got checkd right before 9 and was a 5 so they decided to move me rooms and my Dr. was going to come up and break my water. By the time we got moved into the other room it was around 9:20am and still having contractions but they were more annoying and not unbearable or anything.
I love these two pictures! Every dang machine in my room was beeping for one reason or another. This one was because it was out of paper. It was beeping in 2 second intervals for like 20 minutes!!!!! I was swaying to the beeps and making faces every time it beeped...I was sooooo sleep deprived and this dang beeping was making me insane! beep....beep....beep...beep...beep...beep
This next one, I was having a contraction I had to breathe through and Brandon was still cracking jokes and taking pictures. I had to give him the STOP talk to the hand face. I don't know why but we seem to laugh a lot when I am in labor. It makes it go quick but laughing through contractions hurt! I also love these two pictures because they were take less than an hour before Nicholas was born and,they weren't even sure if they were keeping me, I'm not even in a labor room, just one of the "triage" rooms. aka, you think you are in labor but you aren't rooms. Once labor picks up I sure go fast!
Anyways, we got to the room, got settled in, had to have the dang iv lock put in, husband still cracking jokes and being annoying etc etc. My Dr. came and broke my water at 9:40 and I was at an 8. I'm going to toot my horn and say my nurse laughed and said how the heck are you at an 8, you are so chill for being that far along. Apparently the only time I am "chill" is when I am in labor. She asked if I wanted an epidural to which I said no, now all that was left to do was wait. My Dr. decided because how fast I had progressed he was just going to hang out at the hospital and good thing he did! They started setting up the room for the big event and one of the nice nurses offered to take pictures for us which I happily agreed to! She took some really great ones, but I'm only putting a few up, like this gem
About 15 minutes before Nicholas was born. Things got pretty intense between these next pictures. Extremely painful contractions,hot flashes waves of nausea...the fun stuff that happens (at least to me) right before baby comes. Brandon was there to hold my hand...and puke bag in the event I needed it. Thankfully the hand was all I needed.
I love this picture, this is the only touching I allow Brandon to do. The one contraction I had to wait to push, I always squeeze him for dear life. Actually there were two contractions that were terrible and I tried to rip is hand and face off, other than that, I don't like to be touched:)
One contraction, three pushes and Nicholas Joseph was born! Brandon cut the cord per the norm with our babies. I still cant believe how fast it went from "eh, maybe its labor" to boom, baby.
Nicholas getting all cleaned up.
We did skin to skin for an hour or so, he ate, then he got weighed. Brandon was almost spot on with his weight guess. Nicholas was measuring 7lbs 7 oz at 36 weeks and was born at 38+6 and 8lbs 5 oz. The ultrasound was pretty accurate!
We spent the next two days hanging out and I took a few pictures to remember those quiet hours in the hospital.
We watched the sun come up both days, he was a night owl for sure. I don't blame him with all the people coming in and out.
My crazy haired boy! Getting ready to head home.
An unusual labor for me but a fun story for sure. Not sure if I was going to be sent home for the second time to a baby in under an hour!
Stay tuned for how we picked his name and our first few days at home.
note: thank you to Kellie who has been tending to my younger three boys whom I've been ignoring while trying to finish this blog post:)
