Well, we are at home now and somewhat settled so let me take some time and update all you guys with “the rest of the story“. Dad's perspective anyway, I'm sure Jacqui has her own version.

Monday night around 7 PM Jacqui started having some pretty big contractions. Knowing the time was near, we started timing them and they ended up being between 6 and 9 minutes apart.

We were told that we needed to head in when they were 5 minutes apart for an hour. Since they were such a broad  range apart we held out until 10:30 PM and called in to ask if 3-7 minutes was enough to come in. OHSU had us hold on a bit longer and suggested that she take a warm bath to see if they get closer together or stronger. I ran Jacqui a bath and helped her through her contractions for about forty five minutes until they were about 3-5 minutest apart. About that time I started getting pretty nervous because some were in the 3 range. By the time she got out of the bath and was dressed she had a few in the 2 minute range. She was moving like a turtle in peanut butter (she had a good excuse!) and I told her she had to stop messing around because I had to drive her all the way to OHSU. We were out the door minutes later (the bags were packed and in the car a week prior, yeah I'm that anal). Believe it or not I drove pretty calmly but started to get a bit worried on HWY 26 at the top of Sylvan hill when she had a few contractions about a minute and a half apart. In my mind I was prepared to deliver the baby if I had too (really, I was THAT ready). Because I was paranoid about HWY 26 and rush hour traffic I wanted to know how to deliver a baby and I was only fuzzy on what to do with the umbilical cord. I asked a friend that had a baby recently and he filled me in on what they taught him in his parenting classes. That was good enough for me (things come pretty naturally to me when it comes to medicine and science). Needless to say, I didn't have to deliver.  We made it to the hospital with plenty of time to spare. OHSU is a mess right now, they have a ton of new construction going on so we were a bit confused at where to go even though we both thought we knew after being there so many times for her monthly and weekly checkups. We finally had her in a bed around 12:30 AM for her whirlwind of labor and pushing.

At arrival and initial examination Jacqui was dilated to 4 1/2 cm. They asked if she wanted an epidural not long after we had in her bed which she naturally answered “yes“ to. The epidural was quickly put on hold when the nurse discovered that when she was having a contraction Jace's heart rate dropped dangerously low. After having Jacqui lay on her left side and seeing the drop was a lot less and he recovered nicely between contractions they gave here the epidural. At that point her water had not broken and they were excited to move this along as fast as possible since Jace's heart rate was concerning, so they broker her water for her. Things moved fast after that. It took about an hour for her to dilate to the full 10 centimeters.  When she started to push his heart rate went back to the dangerous level. They started talking about using the vacuum or C-section to get him out as quickly as possible but Jacqui wouldn't hear of it. Her pushing effort went into overdrive. She was pushing so hard and so intently I swore she was going to break a vein in her head or pass out. The pushing lasted for approximately 20 minutes and Jace was delivered by God, nurses, doctors, Jacqui and Dad (c'mon I held her hand and cut the cord, give me some credit too) at 5:10 AM.

I'm really proud of my wife for what she endured. All I could do was hold her hand and encourage her. Even that simple task was tough for me since I was so emotional about the whole thing. Every time I tried to talk to her I was fighting back the tears. Funny thing is that she was in pain and working so hard and I was the one crying. Mostly for three things; 1) I was scared for Jace, 2) I was sooo proud of my wife for trying so hard and 3) I was so excited to see our son we had waited 9 months to see.

The whole family is so googly in love with Jace. We spend our days and nights holding him, kissing him, hugging him and saying things like: “I love you Jace“, “he's so beautiful“, “he's so perfect“, “Hi Jace, Mommy/Daddy is here“ (when he opens his eyes). We are so thankful to God for bringing him to us AND bringing him to us so healthy and PERFECT.

We are really excited to share him with everybody and I'll keep posting pictures for those who can't make it to the house to see him. Click the image in this blog entry to go to the latest uploads or click the Photo Gallery link in the left menu to see all the albums. Before long you'll be oohing and ahhing right along with us.