And then there were three...

Here's the story of our exciting weekend...

On Thursday night (July 16th) Emily and I decided to go see the new Harry Potter movie since we figured it could be a while before we had a chance to see a movie in the theater again. The movie was okay. Emily had been having some very small Braxton-Hicks type contractions for the past week or two, but during the movie she started to have some that were a little stronger. Not sure what to do about it, we went home and went to bed. Actually, I went to bed and Emily stayed up as the contractions got a little more regular. About 3:00am (July 17, 2009) I woke up and we started timing them. I still wasn't convinced it was anything to get excited about, but Emily decided it would be better to err on the side of caution.

When we got to the hospital they took us in to their observation room and hooked Emily up to to some machines to measure her contractions and the baby's heart rate. She was dilated about 1cm, so they told us they'd be back in an hour to check her again. She continued to have fairly regular contractions, and an hour later she was 2cm. I guess that's still not much, but after another hour she was almost 3cm and they decided that this would be the day.

Emily hooked up to the monitors

The room was pretty nice

Emily read this book about the Bradley method of husband coached child birth and had thought she wanted to try going without an epidural, relying only on the comfort of my presence to get her through the pains of labor. Not surprisingly, after about five hours of contractions that were getting steadily stronger she decided that as stimulating as my company was it was no substitute for that of a CRNA (a nurse anesthetist). The epidural went in and the next couple of hours went by pretty quietly.

Emily hooked up to even more machines

About 1:00pm she was fully dilated and started pushing, and at 1:18pm the Dr. Gilliland welcomed Samuel Roberts Burkinshaw into the world with a suction bulb in the nose. Seemed a little harsh to me, but it was nothing compared to what the nurses did to him after that.

Sam weighed in at 6 lbs 1 oz and was 18 inches long. Not bad for 11 days early!

The proud parents

I've been asking Emily for a couple of weeks now if she was ever going to have this baby, but it seemed to all happen so fast and caught us both a little off gaurd. But we're quickly getting used to it and are very excited to have Sam with us.

Emily's parents, Gerry and Candy, arrived later that day and have enjoyed having some time with their first grandchild. Emily and I have enjoyed having someone around to do the cooking and cleaning.

Sam loves his grandparents

New babies sleep alot...

We heard that to prevent jaundice you should put babies in the sun, so this is Sam sunbathing in front of our storm door.

We've had fun debating which one of us Sam looks like most. Here's some pictures of all of us as babies. We'd be curious to hear any of your opinions.

That's about all the blogging I can handle for now. I'm sure Emily will want to tell her side of the story and share futher updates so check back soon.

Here's Sam signing off.

BAM!