Our Sweet Baby Boy: Caspian Finn Wilkes

Our sweet baby boy has arrived!  Caspian Finn Wilkes was born on August 31, 2011 at 12:10 AM weighing 7 lbs. 2 oz and 19.5" long.  And he is perfect!

I honestly couldn't have asked for a better delivery - no c-section - I got to do my VBAC!!  I guess it's true, 3rd time's a charm!  

So here's how things went.......I started having a dull backache in the morning of August 30th, but wasn't quite sure if it was anything.  It was a constant uncomfortable feeling, but since I was induced with my other two, I didn't know what to expect.  August 30th was Savannah's first day of preschool and I was bound and determined not to miss this milestone for my oldest baby girl.  The first day was just an hour long introduction where the parents stayed with the kids.  So we were there for an hour and then headed home.  

I had asked Brett to work from home that day so that he could stay with Matilda during school and I also had a feeling something was going on.  So after school, I dropped off Savannah with Brett and headed to my Dr.'s office where I already had my weekly appointment scheduled.  I told the nurses and Dr. that I just felt very uncomfortable and had a constant dull pain in my lower back.  The Dr. checked me and I was 3cm dilated and 100% effaced.  So he sent me over to the birth center to find out if I was contracting.  Luckily my Dr.'s office is on the grounds of the hospital.

The nurses in the birth center hooked me up to the monitors for about an hour and sure enough I was having contractions.  They weren't consistent, ranging between 3 to 7 minutes apart, but when the Dr. checked me again, I was at 4cm.  So he decided to break my water and off we went to try for a VBAC.

I called Brett and told him to head over to the hospital.  He arranged to have his parents come over to stay with the girls (thankfully they only live 10 minutes away).  To be honest, I didn't even have a bag packed.  I had some things set aside, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't go into labor early - shows what I know, right?   So Brett got my things together and came on over to the birth center.

It took quite sometime for me to get to 10cm, but once I was there everything happened really quickly.  Baby was Posterior (positioned to come out face up instead of face down).  When I heard this, I was kind of disappointed because Savannah was in the same position and the labor was incredibly intense and I had to push for three hours.  Luckily, I had a wonderful labor and delivery nurse who had me push in all different positions and we were able to get him turned around into the right position before he came out - yippee!!

Once baby Caspian, "Cass", had come down into the right position, it was a matter of minutes before he entered the world.  He came out and immediately started crying and so did my husband and I.  Brett got to cut the cord (which we've never gotten to do before) and things were just perfect from there.

Cass never had to leave our side.  He nursed right away like a little champ for about 45 minutes and then they gave him his first bath right there in the room.  It was beautiful, just how I had always envisioned labor and delivery to be.  

We stayed in the hospital for about a day and a half and then headed home.  And that's where we are now........getting adjusted to our new family of five.

The girls came to meet their new baby brother and were both immediately in love.  My biggest challenge is going to be making sure they don't love on him too much.  Miss Matilda doesn't quite know her own strength, so we'll have to make sure he's well protected, but I'd rather too much love than any other feelings that could have come about.

Brett has been great - he really is everything I could ever ask for in a father and husband.  He's been doing all the laundry, keeping up with the girls, changing Cass's diapers, making meals, doing dishes.  I'll be pretty sad when he has to go back to work, but luckily my mom, "Grandma Jane", is flying in from Texas next Saturday to stay for a week.

We are SO thrilled to have this new, sweet little guy as part of our family.  I look at him sometimes, and can hardly believe he's mine.  His sweet little head, his cute little ears, his funny expressions, his tiny toes and fingers..........they are all so perfect.

So, I will be taking some time to enjoy this little guy and get into some sort of routine with now having three children under age 4.  I have a bunch of giveaway and review posts that I have pre-written prior to having this little guy so you will be seeing those in the next several weeks.  And then after that, we'll just have to see........you'll here from me, but I'm not sure how often.  I'm just going to roll with it.