Ethan Jay is Here!

Well, this is a little late in getting posted, but the news is not any less joyous. As many of you already now, Ethan Jay Wolf was born at 8:09 a.m. on December 13, 2008. He was 7 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long. He's a little long, skinny guy. And, of course, absolutely adorable. So how did this all come about? Well, I'm glad you asked. Here's the summary.

At about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning (Dec 13th), Heather woke up saying that she thought her water had broken. We were not entirely sure if her water had broken, so she continued to monitor her condition. At the time, she had not had any labor contractions. The day prior, she had a non-stress test done and her contractions were approximately 7-8 minutes apart.

As she monitored her progress, I did what all supportive dads do in a time such as this. I went back to sleep! Heather then woke me up a little after 3:30 a.m. to inform me 1) That yes that was her water that broke and 2) She is having contractions. I started timing the contractions and they were already coming about 3-4 minutes apart.

We then started getting everything ready to head to the hospital. We had our bags packed, but Heather just had to take a shower before we left, get her lesson plans together, etc. We finally left for the hospital at 4:50 a.m.

We got to the hospital about 5:15 a.m. Of course, she stopped for a quick picture outside the emergency room entrance. That is the picture to the right.

By the time she got admitted and up to her room it was 5:30 a.m. She didn't get checked until 6:30 a.m. She was at 3 cm and fully effaced. With this being the first birth, we, along with the hospital staff, thought that we would have a some time to wait until Heather was ready to push. Little did we know that Ethan had already decided that he wanted to be in this world very soon.

Around this time, Heather decided that she wanted to have an epidural. Well, the epidural requires bloodwork to be performed, which takes 15-30 minutes. Then, the Anesthesiologist won't even begin to show his face until he gets the results of the lab back. So it was nearly 7:00 a.m. before he showed up to give her the epidural. He completed the epidural and started the drip. In the interim, Heather got checked again and was now at 8 cm!

Heather got checked a few minutes later and was sitting at 9 cm and hitting 10 cm during contractions. A nurse told Heather to give a "Test" push and Ethan took that as the green light. The nurse promptly told Heather to "Wait, don't push anymore." Heather quickly replied, "I can't stop, this baby is coming!"

So less than 15 minutes after the epidural was started, Heather started pushing. A short while later, at 8:09 a.m. to be precise, Ethan Jay Wolf entered this world. He was absolutely beautiful and healthy.









He weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 20 inches long!

Of course Mom and Dad were ecstatic. Here are some more pictures of mom and dad with baby Ethan.