Wesley Robert Klein

Ok so here it is; Wesley’s birth story… I know a few of you have already heard it, so feel free to skip ahead to way cute pictures. I just want to get this recorded for memory sake (since it seems that with each kid I am losing my mind more and more).
I had a baby doctor appointment on Monday at 11:30am, so I left work for a early lunch and met Matthew and Mallory at Kaiser. The midwife (Loren) listened to the baby, measured my tummy and then checked me. I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. She did ‘muck’ around a little and then gave me intrusions to go home, have sex, take a brisk walk and maybe a hot shower. I only had one appointment booked for the afternoon, so I thought that I’d just take the rest of the day off (since Matthew had the day off too and we wanted to obey the doctors orders). We went home gave Mallory lunch and put her to bed…then listened to the doctor’s orders. After or romp, I took Sonny out for the brisk walk and contractions immediately started! They were about 6-7 minutes apart and not that exciting, but contractions nonetheless. I called mom (who was about the leave for work) and she agreed to stop by the house and ‘check’ me again. I was now 3 ½ cm, so making progress, but not enough to head into the hospital. Over the next hour I tracked my contractions they were now 4-6 minutes apart but only lasting for 20-30 seconds and still not supper exciting. The thing is, with Mallory my water broke, so I KNEW to go to the hospital. This time I was left wondering, ‘when do I go in, at what point are contractions ‘real’ and ‘strong’ enough to warrant a hospital?’ (Since heaven forbid I deliver the baby on the newly shampooed carpet). I called mom… again, who told me to keep waiting, because they didn’t sound strong enough or long enough. So over the next 2 hours I tracked them until they were coming every 2-6 minute, but still only 35-45 seconds… though getting more intense with each one. At 7pm I told Matthew that I thought we should just go in. His Mom and John were at the house already so they stayed with Mallory until Thomas showed up to watch her.
When we got to the hospital Mom had just gotten rid of her last patient so she ‘took’ us!!!!! What a blessing that was. I mean to have your own mom caring for you in this very personal and intimate time is like a dream come true! She once again checked me, and I was now 4cm… not dilated enough to officially admit me (5 is the magic number they wanted me at). Sad. MY midwife was actually on that night (how perfect was that), so she said for us to hang out, walk around and I’d be checked again in 2 hours. So mom asked us all the official hospital questions (basically all but admitted us except for putting in an IV catheter and running the labs). Then we walked. Mom gave us the tour, stopping to let me lean into Matthew as I would breathe through each contraction.
At 9pm I was checked again… fingers crossed that I was now 5… but nope, I was only 4 1/2. Once again the midwife said lets check in 2 hours, so I still wasn’t admitted because the labor hadn’t actually started. Sigh! But the contractions were strong enough that I really didn’t want to go home. So we walked some more, talked, contracted and waited for those 2 hours to pass. Just before 10:30 Matthew went down to the car to get my slippers, when all of a sudden my contractions changed, my breathing changed, my whole body changed! Mom recognized it right away and started placing my catheter and got the labs sent out. Just as Matthew was showing back up (and heading straight for the bathroom to pee, totally oblivious as the the change that was taking place), Loren (the midwife) was checking me. I was now 6 cm, 100% effaced and my water bag was bulging. I was NOW finally considered in labor! Loren popped my water bag as Matthew come out of the bathroom. She told him that she thought that I would deliver within an hour and to call his mom (who I had invited to be part of the delivery). Matthew was pretty funny about it though, because he kept feeling like the whole time we were riding the fence as to if we were even going to be admitted into the hospital and now, all of a sudden we are going to have a baby… in and HOUR??? He called his mom, who said she would come down right away.
The next part all happened SOOOO fast that I don’t even remember it all. It was time for moms shift change, so she got to transition from my wonderful nurse into ‘grandma’ mode in the nick of time. In a mater of minutes (literally) my contractions changed again and people were moving all about. Moving in trays, putting on gowns, I was now on the bed breathing…breathing and getting pretty close to feeling like I was needing to push. The mirror was brought in so that I could see my little baby, the bed legs dropped, and Joyce came in (just in time)… because now I NEEDED to push! 8 minutes later a perfect head was out and Loren told me to reach down and pull my baby out (which I had asked her to let me do! With one more push the shoulders were out and I was lifting this wet, warm, slippery body onto my chest! I kept waiting to hear Matthews voice telling me if it was a little boy or girl that I was holding in my arms… but apparently he (once again) couldn’t tell… but this time it was because of all the hands and the cord that was in the way. So impatient me, reached down, hiked up a wiggly wet leg and saw I was holding a SON! We had a SON!
So after only 57 minutes of true labor and 8 minutes of pushing we had a baby boy! What an awesome labor! On our own we could not have created a more perfect day, with all the different players and all the perfect timing. It was all planed perfectly by God.
We got to snuggle our little man for about 2 hours before they bathed, measured and weighed him. And though we didn’t have a name yet, we now knew that he was born at 11:35 pm on February 13, 2012 was 6 pounds 14 ounces, 19 inches long, had a 13 inch BLOND head and absolutely perfect! He has large hands, feet and toes and long thin limbs. Despite being 19 days early he is PERFECTLY healthy, latched to the breast like a pro, and kept shocking all the doctors with his strength, weight, input and output!
We named him the next day. After reading through the ‘bazillion and one’ baby name book we had narrowed it down to three names. We liked them all so we did the most logical next thing, looked them up online in terms of popularity (not wanting to chose a name that lots of other little boys have). One of the names was #9, one was #22 and one was #244 (and that one just so happened to be my all time favorite, since it is my Dads and Thomas’ middle name). The middle name is Matthews’s middle name and his fathers’ first name.
Wesley Robert Klein. Our perfect little son.