Our little boy has arrived. His name is John Alden Parry, and he will go by Alden. He’s the fourth in a line of John Parry’s.

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After sloshing to the hospital very early in the morning we were told that we had to hang out until the doctor came in to see if I could be discharged until I was ready for delivery. I had no contractions for the next few hours and was only 1.5cm when we met with the doctor around 8:30.

The doctor asked that we stay at the hospital. He didn’t even want us to leave the room, in fact. Apparently if the umbilical cord slipped out there would be only a 15 minute window to have our baby fully delivered before serious brain damage or death. Although it wasn’t likely that would happen the risk was not advisable. We unfortunately agreed.

Thus began being strapped up to monitors and IVs for the next several hours. The results for my tests from earlier in the week had not come back and likely would not over the holiday weekend So I was put on a Penicillin drip. It burns! We chose to take PIT to jump-start contractions since I was not progressing at all. SO I had an additional IV plus I had to be hooked up to monitors pretty much nonstop.

My hopes for another ambulatory labor and delivery were being quickly dashed. When I had only progressed to 3cm over the next 5 or so hours I decided to get an epidural. The labor had been pretty painless up until that point but I knew what was coming. Waiting for each painful contraction and not being able to do anything to work through them was not something I wanted to have to deal with. Sure enough after I got the epidural and before it kicked in I got a really strong contraction–one that made me just want to cry. I was so glad to have it as I watched my contractions rage every 90-120 seconds. I could tell they were big and I could tell they hurt even though I couldn’t totally feel them. I was pleasantly surprised at how I wasn’t totally paralyzed with the epidural.

The nurses planned to check my progress again after a shift change. About a half hour later I was a “good 7”. That was about 3:15 pm. They began to get things ready. I talked to our families and told them optimistically that I thought we would have a baby within two hours. (I overestimated by nearly two hours). I started to feel like I was ready to have our baby. The doctor was called. The nurses told me to wait. I had told them to tell me not to push to help ensure no tearing so I thought that was their reasoning for telling me to wait. But soon we figured out that they were afraid to deliver the baby without the doctor there, and that was their only reason for asking Elisa to wait. If I had realized that earlier, I would have just delivered the baby myself. Once the baby is crowning, it was so inconsiderate for Elisa to have to keep waiting. My body basically took over and Chad got to catch before the doctor arrived.

At 3:42 pm we had a very small 5 pound 5 ounce, 18.5 inch boy. Even though he is tiny, he is healthy. He looked strong. I thought I remembered Eden looking a lot more fragile when she was new. We haven’t had any concerns since the birth.

Eden has started to help say prayers now. She can repeat most words, so we let her plod her way through, using short sentences. A few days ago she heard my Mom say, “Oh, man!” and she liked the sound of it. She thinks that’s the same word as “Amen.” So at the end of prayers now she lets out a happy, “Oh man!”