Alex Chase
was born
May 14
at 4:28 AM
He weighed in at 8 lbs straight
and was 19 1/2 inches long.
Little Alex was a gentleman and let Mommy see his big brother sing in church for Mother’s Day. After that though, he was ready to come (or maybe just Mom was), and BOY did he come fast. I’d wanted to have a natural birth, and I used my Hypnobabies cds and techniques, and apparently they worked – maybe a little too well. 🙂 We got to the hospital at 3:23 AM, and he was born an hour later, with the nurse delivering! For the full story, read on… if you don’t care for detailed birth stories, skip the next paragraph!
The first REAL contractions started about 10:30 Sunday (I’d been having them off and on all week). I was up all night, but was very calm and relaxed. Finally about 2 am I woke Jeremy up and told him I was going to take a shower (which, incidentally helped with the labor and also made me feel better about going to the hospital all clean -not gross like I was with David!) I thought my water might have broken in the shower so after I got out and dressed Jeremy packed up the car, we dropped David off with friends and headed for the hospital. By this time things were 2-5 minutes apart, but I really didn’t feel the need to rush – we had at least a couple of hours, right! We checked in at 3:23 – and found out that I was 7 cm dilated and 90% effaced! I had no idea I was THAT far. So off we went to Labor and Delivery where the nurses scrambled to get the monitors and IV going and to get the on-call Dr there in time. In the next 20 minutes or so though my body was ready, Alex was crowing and I couldn’t not push! It was at this point I had a hard time remembering to use my hypnosis. The pressure was so intense, and for some reason, I thought I was going to have to stay this way for another hour, not minutes. After little more than 5-10 VERY intense minutes Alex came into the world though, with the bag of waters actually still intact. (That’s supposed to be good luck. It’s also pretty ironic, seeing how the only reason I decided we should go in when we did is because I wasn’t sure if my water had broken or not) Luckily, I only had some minor tearing, and there was no “ring of fire.”
Alex is a very calm little guy, with long fingers and toes and bright eyes (when they’re open). Everything seems to be fine with him, except his right ear. It’s kind of like if you took your ear and folded it down over the ear opening. He did respond to some frequencies on that side during the hearing test though, so it’s most likely mostly a cosmetic deal. It’s like we saved money on him not having to have an anesthesiologist, but will end up paying for reconstructive surgery instead! 🙂 Still, we’re very glad he’s here and wouldn’t trade him for anything! So far loves to eat and sleep (I actually got a 3 1/2 hour stretch last night!). David was very excited for his little brother to come too. We talked to him over the phone and told him that Alex had come out of Mommy’s tummy, and he was like, ” Maya, Alex came out of Mommy’s tummy!” He does pretty good at holding him so far, and seems pretty fascinated by him.
We love and care about you all, and wanted you to share in our good news. Enjoy the pictures!
Love,
Jeremy, Melanie, David and Alex