She's Here! Introducing Wynne Pierson Lake

Our baby girl is here!

Born Thursday, January 30th, 2008 at 22:20 Doha Time

Al Ahli Hospital

Doha Qatar

Length 19.7 inches

Weight 7 lbs, 3 ounces

Finally! We were expecting her on the 25th, but we found out she was facing "sunny side up" and had not dropped. This means that she was head down as she should be, but her face was facing the same direction as Erin's. Apparently the little head fits better if the baby looks at mom's kidneys. The doctor had said at our last visit (Tuesday the 28th) that if there had been no progress that Erin would be induced on 2 February. That was ok, but a disappointment as Erin wanted to be able to call me and say "It's time" and to have a natural birth experience.

Knowing that, Erin's sister Randi and I set out to do whatever we could to make that little one turn around. I googled it, and came up with a few lists of things to try such as "pelvic rocking", positioning on all fours, walking sideways up stairs, etc. With our coaching help, Erin tried all the exercises on Wednesday the 29th.

So, it was 40 weeks and 5 extremely long days in when Erin, who was at the mall with Randi and our nephew Jude, called me at work on Thursday the 30th to say "I don't want to alarm you but I have been having Braxton-Hicks contractions all morning." (These are "practice" contractions.) They were about 10 minutes apart and sporadic. I was being cautiously optimistic and said "call me when you are done shopping and give me an update." She did and they had only intensified. I decided that was enough and I met them at the mall and drove them home.

Later, she was going through her breathing exercises and starting to get uncomfortable. After a particularly long grimace I said, that's it....let's go. That was about 15:00 Doha time. We got checked in and they hooked Erin up to the machine that graphs the heartbeat and contraction activity. The staff agreed it was real (our goofy tricks of the night before had worked!), and we got sent to our guest room. It was what they call a VIP suite, which basically is a private hospital room with an adjoining guest area with three couches, an extra bathroom, a refrigerator, etc. All of this came in really handy as it gave our Randi and our nephew a place to sleep and hang out as well.

All I can say is Erin is freaking brave or possibly crazy. Most of her family breeze through in 3 hours, but it took until 22:20 before it was all over, about 7 hours. I know - that's still really fast in comparison. She made pretty fast progress, most of in our guest room while dealing with contractions. After that it was two hours in the delivery room. Aside from Erin having a little laughing gas during the worst of the contractions, it was 100% natural. She didn't even curse me out, though she did squeeze the crap out of my hand a few times.

I saw everything, cut the cord, and didn't feel the least bit queasy (amazingly). Words cannot express the feeling, so I will not try and elaborate on what I felt. I can say I know now how my parents must have felt about me, it's definitely an "Oh, right!" kind of moment. All I can say is how proud I am of Erin for being a trooper, and how grateful I am to Randi for being a super experienced coach and expert. (Three babies in in three and a half years qualifies her)

And the name? We picked Wynne from a book of 40,000 baby names. For the record, it's Welsh in origin, meaning "fair haired". Ironic, since she's born a brunette, eh? And Pierson is Wynne's great grandmother's maiden name, Vivian Pierson. If little Wynne had been a boy, it would have been "Harper Edwin" Lake. We're trademarking that one just in case, name stealers! Next one could be a boy.

Erin is getting better each day, and I expect that at some point she will log on tell it from her point of view. In the meantime, we are going to upload all the photos we can. Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and gifts. Now we try and survive "The First Two Weeks". Wish us luck...

-Steve