Josiah Lee

He is here!

Josiah Lee was born at 2:33 p.m. on September 14, 2011. 

We went to the hospital at 7:30 that morning to begin induction. It took about an hour before the Pitocin actually got started, and by 9:15, I was having some contractions. I got a fabulous epidural at around 11:00. (I am 2 for 2 on epidurals ... perhaps I should quit while I'm ahead.) By 1:45, I was ready to push, but.... my doctor was not!

Of course, there's no way we could have known this when we scheduled the induction, but a huge weather front moved in on the morning of the 14th. There was record rainfall that day—the most in 12 years. Apparently, that kind of shift in barometric pressure causes people to go into labor. TEN babies were born on the same shift as Josiah! My doctor delivered four of them, and at the point when I reached 10 cm., he was delivering another baby and scheduled to appear in surgery right after. So we waited about half an hour after I was ready to begin pushing. The epidural made that bearable, but eventually, we couldn't really wait any longer. 

I pushed through 2 contractions with the delivery nurse, and then she said, "Stop!" She pressed the call button and called for Dr. Stark to come immediately. I waited through one contraction for him to arrive, then pushed through two more and Josiah was out! 8 lbs. 3 oz., 20 inches. And hair!

OK, enough words. Here are the pictures!

Ready to go to the hospital, one day short of
39 weeks. I had to include the cane in the picture,
since it's part of the story of this pregnancy. Really
hoping that offloading a baby will fix my back!

Just born!

Lorien wasn't sure what to think of him at first.
She was very concerned about my IV, though. 

First bath