Nicolas Hernandez - born November 18th, 2009

Lucas was born 3 1/2 weeks early, Matias was born 5 days early - but I was not expecting Nicolas to arrive so early and as my sister Monika knows, I was in denial pretty much the whole time I was in labor. Tuesday night (the 17th) I had my first 'real' contraction at around 6pm. I had had a doctor's appointment earlier that afternoon at 4pm. She said I was dilated to a 3, about 50% effaced and that he was at station zero. Still, I was not expecting anything anytime soon. I had no idea what was coming! After the first contraction at 6pm, they kept coming, but very irregular and never very painful. They were often enough though that I never could fall asleep. By 5am, I had to enlist the help of Zeke to push on my back to get through a contraction. At around 6:30am, we all got up to help Lucas get off to school. Zeke was a little unsure about leaving me at this point, but I was still in denial enough not to be too concerned about it. I should've know though - because pretty much as soon as Zeke left, I was more than ready to go to the hospital! Later I realized that I was in transition. By the time Zeke dropped Lucas off at school and then Matias at our friend Jill's house, it was about 8am. We made it to the hospital at 8:30am. The first nurse told me I was dilated to an 8 and in transition so they took me right away to the delivery room. They hooked me up to an IV (I'm still considered a VBAC), and gave me a small dose of nubain, enough to calm me down and be able to handle the contractions again. An hour later, the nubain had worn off and I was slightly struggling again, but then the nurse told me I could start pushing if I wanted. About 10 minutes later, he was born at 10:05am! Those 10 minutes were by far the hardest, but it was so amazing to finally meet Nicolas!

I don't know if it was from the flash on our camera, but I love the contrast between the darkened room and how Nicolas is in the spotlight in this picture - this was taken in the first minute after he was born

The computer screen shows that he was 8 lbs 2 oz. He was 21 inches long.

Warming up under the warmer

Our nurse Deb was amazing!

Hanging out in our room, waiting to go home on Thursday, Nov 19th

Nicolas in the car, ready to go home

the 3 brothers all together for the first time!