Kathy and Geran: December 2011

Well, by now you have probably heard the news: Geran and I became proud parents of a beautiful baby boy Saturday, November 19 at 5:04pm. After some deliberation, we named him Seth Richard; Seth because both of us actually liked that name, and he just looked like a Seth. And the scripture quoted in the Bible Dictionary: "Because he [Seth] was a a perfect man, and his likeness was the express likeness of his father, insomuch that he seemed to be like unto his father in all things" (D&C 107:43). Geran is the greatest man I know, and nothing would please me more than having our son "like unto his father." Richard after Geran's Dad, and we both felt like he needed and deserved a namesake. :) We are having fun adapting to having a newborn around, and we feel so blessed to be the parents of such a healthy baby boy! *Disclaimer: This paragraph is my birthing story, so if you want to skip ahead to the pictures, go ahead!* With a few signs of impending labor throughout the week, I knew it was getting close to that mysterious but exciting time. That Saturday morning around 4am, I woke up and thought my water may have broken. Unsure if it did or not, I called Labor and Delivery, who instructed me to come in, even though my contractions were irregular and weak. When we got there, the resident took a sample of the fluid to test, and came back with the news that one test said the fluid was amniotic fluid, and the other test said it wasn't! Plus he said he could still feel a bag of waters. Great. Did we come in for nothing? No--the resident said that since I was dilated to 5cm already, I should stay, since real labor usually takes off around then anyways. So we moved into a nice big delivery room where our baby would be born. After I made it to 6cm (at which point I still wasn't really in pain, another resident came in to break my water. But there was to bag of waters to be broken! Somewhere along the way I guess it sprung a leak... I guess I'm not a gusher, like some women are. Anyways, I was stuck at 6cm for a while, so the Dr wanted to start pitocin. Having heard of the arduousness of pit, I opted for an epidural at that point. So I don't think I really felt true labor pains, since the epidural was administered before the pitocin took its effect. Labor progressed pretty regularly after that, my mom came from Kuna, and my sister Tressia came up from Logan. (I had invited both of them to watch the birth if they wanted to.) Finally it came time to push, which time happened to be shortly after the epidural started to wear off! Pushing was the most painful and intense part of the whole process. Geran was so great to help coach me through it and encourage me. I loved having him next to me cheering me on. It seemed like forever, and I've never experienced such tensity throughout my entire body, but after a half hour of pushing, there was our beautiful baby boy, crying and shivering! I was so happy to see our baby, and didn't even pay attention to the stitching up of my very small, level one tear. (Yay--only a tiny tear!) Of course he was soon cleaned up, weighed, measured, tested, all wrapped up with a little hat, and handed back to his mom and dad, and our lives changed forever! Ok, now it's picture time!