Here he is!

We got a surprise this weekend from little baby Noah. He's here! He arrived at 12:26am on Sunday. I would just give you all of the essential information, but Courtney wants me to share the whole birth story. Just know that it sounds worse than it actually was.

Saturday, Courtney was in the beginning of her 39th week and started having contractions about 15 minutes apart by mid-morning. They lasted all morning and into the afternoon. By 3pm they were 8-10 minutes apart, which isn't too big of a deal except that she hadn't felt the baby move all day. I called the hospital to see what we should do and they said we should come in right away to get it checked out.

By about 5pm the doctor was fairly concerned because some of the contractions were causing the baby's pulse to drop to about 60 beats per minute (normal is 120-150). The nurses tried various things to get the baby to move just to see if he would respond to anything. Finally they shocked her stomach with a little device that caused the baby to wiggle like crazy for about an hour. The movement must've helped because the baby's heartrate was no longer dropping with the contractions. They released her from the hospital about 8pm.

As we were walking through the parking lot, almost to the car, Courtney squeezed my arm and said in a panic, "Jared, I'm soaking wet! I think my water just broke!" "Well, lets go back in" I said. "Go ask the nurse if I can go get some food real quick before I come check in. I just don't want my last meal to have been Reeses Puffs." The nurse told me that technically she shouldn't, but if it takes her 10 mins to get to the hospital, everything will be okay.

Five minutes later I'm in Cafe Rio getting take-out while Court is in the car with amniotic fluid in her lap and having contractions 4.5-5 minutes apart. The contractions were too painful and too often for her to eat much. We got back to the hospital and were in a room in just a few minutes. Turns out that getting dinner wasn't such a good idea. While they were putting in her IV, she lost it.

The epidural went in with no problem. She was loving life after that kicked in! They started the pitocin drip to speed up labor and the baby's pulse started spiking down again every time there was a contraction. They spent the next 3 hours trying to find the right balance of pitocin to induce labor but not give intense enough contractions to harm the baby. There was one point where nurses ran in out of nowhere because the baby's pulse dropped dangerously low for 7 minutes. Also, I didn't fully follow the explanation, but there was meconium in the amniotic sac and that is a bad thing.

After three hours Courtney was only dialated to a 1. The doctor came in and met with us. He explained the risks with having a natural birth. Basically, we could have a 30 hour labor and potentially cause a lot of harm to the baby at the same time or we could do a C-section and have the baby out in 20 minutes. It was a pretty simple decision for us to make.

The next thing I know, I'm wearing a space suit holding Courtney's hand with the upper half of her body behind a curtain. Courtney was smiling through the whole thing. I heard the doctor say, "Here he is. Here's the little guy. If I was fishing, I'd throw him back."

He's beautiful! He is 20 inches long and weighs only 4lbs 9oz. He is really skinny and has a hard time staying warm on his own. There were some breathing issues they were worried about at first, but he's perfectly fine now. His blood sugar is a little low so they have an IV in him. The main thing is that he needs to fatten up some. There is a feeding tube through his nose to his stomach because eating burns more calories than he receives from the food. This way, they just send milk straight to his stomach without him having to work for it. If he can maintain his weight or even gain some then he'll go home with Courtney in 4 days. More than likely, though, he'll need to stay for a few days longer.

Courtney is doing fantastic! I've never seen her happier. She is so excited to be a mother and has had an amazing, optimistic, faithful attitude throughout all of this. We're looking forward for all of you to meet him. Thanks for all of your help and support!