James Whitford

More pictures of Taba's new little baby boy! While he did not come out with a sticky note on his forehead of what his name should be like they'd hoped, they decided before leaving the hospital on James Whitford, after both of his grandpas!

When the girls came to meet him Gwen said, "This is the happiest day of my life!" Isn't that so sweet?

Once home from the hospital Robby got to hold James for a little bit. He looked at him like he was a strange little animal - a little cautious and excited... Robby looks like a GIANT next to James. Can he really be so big already? They grow so fast!

Look at his sweet little face! He looks so much like Anna did when she was born! It was such a treat to be there for his birth, like I was there the day Anna was born!

For those interested here's my long, detailed version of Tab's birth story...

Taba called me at 7:30 pm saying they were at the hospital and she’d call me in an hour with an update when they checked her again to see if I should come up or not. They got to the hospital about 7 and the nurse said she was at a 3 1/2 .

She walked around for an hour and they checked her again about 8:30 – she was at a 4 ½. She called me and told me to get on my way! I was at Liv’s son’s birthday party so we left and went home so I could put Robby down, change, and get to the hospital.

I talked to Ben at 9:30 on my drive up and he said they had just broken her water. She had been at a six and I guess she was ready to try to speed things up. At that point she considered getting an epidural since she had 4 cm to go and she was already feeling pretty miserable but her nurse encouraged her not to, reminding her that after the water breaks it usually goes a lot faster so it might go quickly.

I got to the hospital at 10:00 and she seemed really happy and looked great. Her nurse, Andria, was really awesome. By 10:30 her contractions had gotten a lot more intense. Ben and I took turns pushing on her knees to relieve some of the pain and that seemed to help. She got up to go to the bathroom and after that she tried a few contractions on her knees with her arms over the top of the bed. After only 2 contractions she was having a really hard time and she could feel the baby's head coming. It seemed like the change in position got him going pretty well. The nurse checked her and she was at a 9 so she called for the doctor to come down.

At 11 she was on her back again and having really intense contractions. The doctor came in a few minutes later. Taba didn't have the urge to push quite yet so they just let her continue laboring. At 11:18 she started pushing. It was super painful at this point and the pushing didn't really help, probably due to his being face up which nobody mentioned till after - either they didn't know till he was coming out or they didn't want to discourage her. Either way they all said it was a super tough delivery and to do it w/o the epidural was really tough. He came out all at once at 11:33 pm.

I was really impressed with her doctor. She didn’t do the push counting way instead she just calmly encouraged Taba to listen to her body and she took time to stretch her out and just guided her with her voice.

Taba held him for about 20 minutes but then the stitching up process (she had a 2nd degree tear) was really painful so she let them take him to be weighed and stuff but said, "But bring him right back!" So Ben got to hold him for a while and then me till Taba was ready. She held him and nursed him in the delivery room. About half hour after the birth she started getting really really shaky and cold. They got two of the hot blankets to put on her and then we piled on a few more but she just wouldn't stop shaking. That's when Ben got creative and put the towel on her head. :) (see the picture) Eventually her body relaxed and she was feeling ok.

Her first words after he was born were, "That feels so much better!" Shortly after that it was, "He's so cute!" Later when we were discussing how it went she said, "I felt like I was going to die. Never again." If she knew how much pain it would end up being she probably would've gotten the epidural but she's glad she had the experience and that she got through it.

***If you're in the birth story mood here's a link to mine.***