Eric Sebastian Bernier joined our family at 9:49 pm on Tuesday, August 24th. He weighed 8 lbs 15.2 oz (a healthy boy and considerably bigger than his brother, who was 7 lbs 5.5 oz) and had a full head of dark hair. We think he's perfect.
More birth details here: My water broke at 8:30 in the morning (as I was heading up the stairs to retrieve Thomas's shoes). A quick phone call to the midwife confirmed that there was no reason to panic, so I suggested André go to work & finish up any last minute things, and I called my friend Lindsay (who is having her second boy in Sept) to confirm that she wouldn't mind having a coffee date with a woman who might be in labour. She was happy to take my mind off the impending arrival. Bridgehead did us some good (and no one there knew I was wandering about wearing adult diapers - whew!), but eventually I decided that it was really time to go home. I took a short nap & woke up with some contractions. From there, things were apparently "textbook".
The midwife (Suzanne) came to check on me at 3:30. The doula (Susan) came, too. We sent them both home, only to call Susan in a bit of a panic around 6. Things were moving along. By 7:30 we were at the hospital and checked in. (The car ride there was something else - even getting into the car attracted the attention of one of our across-the-street neighbors. And André gets points for being a fantastic dad-to-be driver - he did NOT speed & took the bumps and corners very gently.) The labour moved right along - and lest anyone forget, contractions hurt. Sometimes I was able to think of them as "pressure" (as per the doula), but most of the time I was not. I asked for an epidural as we got to the hospital, and Suzanne was doing all the things necessary to make that happen, but it was a slow process. This was complicated by the fact that I was dehydrated & needed an IV (you must have an IV for an epidural). After Suzanne tried & failed and a OB nurse tried and failed, they called a nurse who used to work on the oncology ward. She did the trick & I had an IV - but too late. When Suzanne checked, I was 6 cm dilated, so she went running down the hall to get the anesthesiologist, but the very next contraction found me wanting to push. Oops - I was already 9ish cm. And then I was pushing.
Pushing without an epidural is very different than pushing with one. With Thomas I was told to push in a certain rhythm because the epidural dulls the sensations (duh, that's the point). With Eric I was allowed to do what my body told me. At first I was frightened & very unsure of myself - in fact, I was convinced that I was doing it wrong. But eventually I let go (I really didn't have any choice) & things went very smoothly. Eric came out rarin' to go - with one hand next to his head & the cord wrapped twice around his neck. Luckily, a wrapped cord is only a problem in the movies (at least, that's what Suzanne told me and it certainly wasn't a problem here) and Eric was crying lustily and on my chest almost immediately.
Interesting notes: first, Eric had a very long umbilical cord - Suzanne couldn't get over it (and if this weren't a family blog, I'd even consider posting pictures). Second, we hadn't chosen Eric's name before he was born. André knew immediately that he looked like an Eric, but it took a few minutes before I could see anything but the top of his head. We thought we knew what middle name we would use (we had chosen a family name), but as André wrote out Eric's name for the first time we hesitated. A good long look at our boy convinced us that he was Eric Sebastian - and that's who he is!
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