Welcome Welcome Little Peter

We have our newest little family member! On June 15th 2009 at 9:25am we welcomed Peter Chris Harris into the world. He weighed a rather large (at least in comparison to Jack) 8 pounds 11 ounces and was 21 inches long.
Originally, I was supposed to be induced at 7:30am that very morning. I had been dilated to 2/3cm for a few weeks and had been suffering for a fair amount of pain in that last month. I asked my doctor if we could hurry things along at all, so he went ahead and stripped my membranes the Friday before the birth. He seemed fairly confident that I would then go into labor naturally over the weekend. However, if for some reason I didn't he scheduled an induction for Monday morning. I did, of course, think about the fact that this would be on Jack's birthday, but to be honest I was kinda beyond caring if they had the same birthday. I was very ready to have my baby. I had numerous contractions over the weekend, but every morning there I was STILL PREGNANT.

We celebrated Jack's 2nd birthday on Sunday evening as we weren't sure we'd get the chance to do much of anything on Monday. He had a brilliant time and loved all of his gifts.
That night I went to be feeling very nervous. With Jack, my water broke in the middle of the night and I was only dilated to 1 cm, so I had to be induced. Child birth isn't exactly fun any way you do it, but I suddenly started thinking about how painful being induced actually was and was having major second thoughts about doing it. At 3am on Monday I woke up to strong contractions that were about 15 mins apart. I waited for a short while before waking Ryan up with a screech of pain! Ha. We realized pretty quickly that this was it when my contractions were 5 mins apart within the next half an hour.

We arrived at the hospital in Newberg, which is thankfully very close to our house, about 5:30am. Since I had been in labor for 12 hours with Jack, I told Ryan to go get breakfast and some food to bring back to the hospital for lunch, etc.
Well, in the short half an hour he was gone I had already dilated to 5/6 cm, had my water broken by the doctor, and been given the epidural. Ryan walked back into a busy room and was wondering what in the world was going on. I was starting to think he might miss the birth as everything was happening so fast. Because I was dilating so quickly the epidural didn't have time to catch up with me during any of the contractions. Thankfully right when I was about to start pushing the epidural kicked in. Within 3 contractions of pushing the wee guy was out. It was a very painful, but wonderfully quick experience.

I loved my Doctor and all of the nurses were wonderful. I am so glad I changed over to that hospital. It was great for Jack and Ryan too, as they were able to spend most of every day that I was in the hospital with me and then only had a short drive home.

Jack and Grandma Liz (Ryan's mum) came to visit at about 10:30am after the birth. I was interested to see how Jack would react. When he first saw me in the bed he got a really sad look on his face and didn't want to come to me. But within seconds he had changed his mind and kept saying "Baby" over and over again. It was very sweet. He is very gentle and loving towards his new baby brother, but is still adjusting to the fact that he now needs to share his mummy. There have been a few instances when I think he wished Peter would go back to the hospital, but on the whole Jack is a wonderful big brother.

I was able to come home with Peter on Wednesday and we are enjoying him immensely. Although, I had definitely forgotten just how little sleep you actually get with a newborn, but it's so worth it.

Here are a few pictures...there are more on facebook:



My pregnant belly at 9 months







Jack's birthday


New big brother Jack


Our wee family...Jack isn't real happy in this one



Jack, Mummy, and Peter



Daddy and wee Pete



Our wee Pete



A proud Mum



Peter



Jack getting some help from Daddy as he learns to ride his new bike