Ethan Quinn Butterfield

Welcome to the world Baby Ethan!

He was born on June 23, 2012. 

At 4:39 am.

Weighing in at 8 lbs.

20 inches long.

We started labor Friday morning, and it was actually an easy thing for me. Really. Apparently I have what is called "Silent Labor." I labor over a few days with very little pain. So Friday, I had made it all the way to a 7 in a matter of hours. Got to 8, stuck around there for a few hours, and made it to 9. Unfortunately, at the Birth Center with our midwife I couldn't get past there. It was close to midnight, and I was exhausted. We decided to non-urgently transfer to the hospital.  I was checked in (everyone shocked I was just walking right in at 9 cm) they broke my water and I choose to have an Epidural at this point. I was extremely tired and knew if I didn't use something to calm me and my body down for at least some time, I wasn't going to do this on my own and would need a C-Section. Troy was there for me the whole time, as well as Launa.  After a few hours I was able to start pushing, and 2 extremely long hours later, Ethan came into this world. He already has brought something so fabulous to our home, and he has been here less than a week. He loves his hands, his dad's voice and staying up late. :] 

The Waiting Game

We are playing the waiting game.
We are at 39 weeks and 3 days.
We are having contractions (sometimes) and are already dilated to a 5 (most likely a 6 or 7 really).
This means, we just get to sit and wait for Little Dude to make his arrival.
This is not all that much fun. But, on the bright side a majority of my labor is done, so hopefully I won't be in "real" labor for very long (cross your fingers I didn't just jinx myself.)

This is what I look like:

It has been an interesting experience.  We have been preparing for this for like.....9 months I guess...and I think both me and Troy were expecting something different. Last week I was having contractions that weren't really anything to notice, and we kind of just ignored them. Obviously they were nothing to be ignored because those contractions got me to a 5.  We were shocked at this information, as was Launa. I mean she was like shocked. So, she stripped my membranes (sorry for the nasty details folks). This caused some serious contractions, every 5 minutes on the dot. A little background: being so far dilated is medically considered "active labor." Contractions every 5 minutes like that are also "active labor." This was exciting/crazy/scary to us all at once.  We all thought we would have a baby sometime that night.This is how the five hours went:
We watched a few episodes of Flashpoint.
Every five minutes I look at the clock, just to make sure they are on time.
Troy didn't even realize I was still having contractions.
At one point, I looked at Troy and asked if this was real. This was so not what I was expecting. I mean, I was just sitting there. Watching TV. Eating crackers. Having regular "active labor." It was extremely weird.
Needless to say, at 5:00 that evening everything stopped.  No more contractions. Nothing. That was frustrating. We had planned to go up the canyon with friends that night and have a fire, so we went.  They were a little shocked I was going, after being informed of what we were doing all day. But hey, I didn't want to miss out on tin foil dinners and s'mores.
And here we are. Sitting around, just waiting. We are trying to be as exciting as possible so that Little Dude gets jealous and decides to come. That hasn't quite worked yet, but we will continue to try.
Keep on the lookout folks because this dynamic duo is about to become a terrific trio. :]