Baby Has Arrived

Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010

Well, today is Kathryn's due date and we're happy to announce the baby is already here! While most people seem to be getting Newman-related news off of Facebook these days, there is not a complete audience intersection (for example, I know my Arkansas readers don't get the Facebook news so I figured it's worth posting here, too. Apologies to my duplicate readers for hearing the same stories and jokes twice....

Thomas George Newman was born on Monday night (Jan. 25) at 11:33 p.m. He was 8 pounds 7 oz.

Kathryn had been having some contractions for the week or so prior, so I didn't think too much of it when she said she was having contractions when I called at 5:30 to say I was heading home. She got me at the train station at 6:30, and then had about a 1 hour Family Home Evening (not sure why we did an extended one that night but we did. Kathryn ran it which included some requirements for Webelos). In between teaching, she was recording her contractions on her new i-Phone app that allows you to just push a button to record the start and end of each contraction and then it tracks it and does all the math for you. (You can even email it to your doctor....now that's one cool App).

At 7:30, I ran the bedtime routine while Kathryn labored in front of the TV watching the new Jane Austin "Emma" movie that she had taped from PBS the night before. At 8:30, I had the kids all to bed and she started to get serious. Knowing that most of the labors go all night, I wasn't worried and spent the next hour doing work email to delegate things off as I figured I'd be out on Tuesday.

When Kathryn started packing around 9:20, I figured she was really thinking this was it. At 9:45 I started timing her contractions. At 10, I called our neighbor Heather to say that we'd probably be calling her that night to stay with the kids.

At about 10:20 after Kathryn got out of the shower, she agreed we should call the midwife. The contractions were only about 40 to 45 seconds long but they were between 2 to 4 minutes. But she was handling them so well, I don't think either one of us thought it was imminent. The midwife said "get in here."

Heather arrived by about 10:40 and we were on our way by 10:45. It is a 30 minute drive to the hospital which is in Sleepy Hollow. All of our other kids were born in White Plains, but we changed for Thomas as policies had changed and we couldn't do a V-BAC at White Plains.

I ran about 5 stoplights....there wasn't any traffic so it seemed silly to wait at the light. Heck, I even drove in the left lane!

About 3 minutes to the hospital, she said she wanted to start pushing. Kathryn later said the drive was like one long contraction. We went in through the ER and the attendants didn't seem in too much of a rush so Kathryn said "Hey, I'm having a baby here, let's get this show on the road....Let's move!"

She was in the hospital room at 11:15 p.m. and I got up there a few minutes later after parking the car. She was at an 8. At 11:29 she started pushing. At 11:33 we were holding our new baby.

It's funny because Josh had always said the baby would be born on Monday, Jan. 25. As the labor started going fast, I told Kathryn that hey, this could still happen.

She got into her private room around 1:30 and then we waited for them to return the baby. So I slept on the Murphy bed in the room until about 4:20, saw the baby again, then drove home to share the news with the kids when they woke up. Sammy had crawled into bed with Heather. I found Matthew wandering around the house wondering where I was. Each kid was so excited. Josh was sad when he heard my voice because he assumed the baby hadn't come. I said no, it happened so fast I'm already home! They just couldn't stop dancing and celebrating. Josh later said we should all kneel down and have a prayer of gratitude.

I went back to the hospital after the kids went to school (and Sammy to a neighbor) and stayed til about noon, then picked up Sam and got the kids out of school early so they could come meet their brother. They fought over who would enter the room first and who would hold him first but if that's the only side-effect to the family dynamic, I'll take it.

Because he was born before midnight, it counted as "the first night" at the hospital so Kathryn was released on Wed. afternoon.

Two final things:

• At one point, the nurse came in during Kathryn's stay to ask a series of questions, one of which was "do you want us to inform your pastor". She pointed at me and said "Well, he's my pastor...." I thought afterward that I wish that when they said "Do you want us to alert your pastor" she had said "No need. He already knows....after all, he's the father". Or "No, that's OK. He knows since it's his baby." Missed opportunity.

• Whenever you tell someone a new baby name and they respond with "Oh, is that a family name", I think that means they find the name unusual and so they are looking for a justification for such a weird name. We haven't really heard that much with "George" but I just thought about that as I think I do the same to others when I hear names outside the "top 100" list of names. (For those wondering, Thomas is at about 50 on the charts).