[fabsroman]

Here is a post from the mods forum that I posted last night. After you read it, you will understand why I haven't posted on here yet. Suffice it to say that the only people other than you guys that know about the birth is my immediate family that you will see in the pics. I haven't even called my other family and friends about it yet. Hopefully, you guys get the draft that I think of you all very highly, even though we do tend to get into some good debates every once in a while.

Mommy and baby came home today at 11:30. Man, it is great being a father, and Billy, I haven't screwed myself into the ceiling. In fact, I have been a lot calmer about most of this than my wife. Later tonight I'll take some pics of the baby in the "nursery". As far as diapers are concerned, I found them on sale a couple of weeks ago at Target and had an additional 20% discount off of them, so I stocked up on them already. We have plenty of sizes ranging from newborn to #5. Now, I am looking for a sale on and a 20% off coupon for college education. LOL

Anyway, here it is:

Last Tuesday, my wife went to her obgyn and was told that she was 3cm dilated and that we would probably have the baby this weekend. That didn't happen. Sunday night/Monday morning she kept me up all night thinking that she was having contractions, which I highly doubted. On Monday, she went back to the doctor and was told that she was still 3cm and while she was having "contractions" they just were not productive. The doctor was worried that my wife would not be able to deliver naturally so they were going to schedule her inducement later that week. All day, she kept asking me if the doctor's office had called with the date for the inducement, and finally they called around 3:00 in the afternoon to tell her that the inducement was scheduled for Wednesday morning at 9:00. Now, my wife started worrying about complications with the inducement, etc. Mind you, this was the last day before tax returns were due and I was extremely busy. So, I didn't get to bed until 2:30 in the morning on Tuesday and I had made an appointment with a client to meet him that night at 8:00. Now, my wife woke me up at 4:30 in the morning telling me that she was having contractions. After the previous night, I didn't think much of it. Then, at 5:30 she told me that she had called the doctor's office and they wanted her to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital at 6:15 and they told us to go to the waiting room. My wife's contractions were so strong that I thought she was going to break all the furniture in there. Finally, at 7:00 they sent somebody in for us, but they still didn't have a birthing room ready so they were going to do an exam in a triage room. The exam showed that she was 6cm dilated and 100% effaced (i.e., the baby was on her way soon). The nurse was shocked since this was my wife's first pregnancy. She was telling the staff to get room 7 ready quickly.

My daughter, Arianna, was born at 11:35 yesterday morning (i.e., April 17th). She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and she was 21 1/4 inches long. My wife was in labor a total of 7 hours and 10 minutes and everything is going rather well. Mom and baby were almost discharged today, but Arianna had a little trouble breathing last night (i.e., she had a short, quick respiration) so the pediatrician decided to keep her at the hospital until tomorrow morning when he could look at her again and get her vitals from tonight. She really did well today. She is more alert. She has her eyes open a lot.

I have been spending most of my days at the hospital. I was there from 6:15 to 11:00 yesterday and I stretched the visiting hours out today from 8:30am to 10:30pm to 8:00am to 11:00pm. I am going to be back at the hospital tomorrow morning at 8:00 and hopefully both of them will be discharged around 11:00am. The car seat and everything at home is ready. I introduced Nitro to a towel that she was swaddled in and after sniffing the heck out of it he laid down on it with his head right in the middle.

I am one proud dad.