He's here! Isaac Xavier Paxton arrived on Father's Day - Sunday, June 17, 2012 at 5:32pm in Cancun, Mexico. He weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces (3.345 kg) and was 21.6 inches long (54 cm). Both mom and baby Isaac are at home doing fine.
Father's Day started out like any other day, although I was feeling some cramps starting at around 9:30am, I didn't think anything of it since I'd been having them for several weeks (Braxton Hicks contractions). They are a normal way that your body preps for labor. However these kept getting more and more intense, although they were irregularly spaced. We called Dr. Castillo, who advised us to call him back when I was experiencing three contractions of thirty seconds or more each, all within ten minutes. Shortly after we hung up around 2:00pm my water broke, and then things really started moving. We called him back and told him what was happening, and he said he'd meet us at the ER. Adam made some quick calls to family members, and we frantically threw some last-minute things into our overnight bags, which were half-packed already. The car ride to the hospital was pretty harrowing, since I was in a lot of pain, Adam was sweating and nervous and we hit every red light between home and hospital.
We arrived and Dr. Castillo was there. After what seemed like an interminable wait, I got my epidural and the pain was virtually eliminated. Since we'd had some issues several weeks ago with the baby's heart rate being low, the doctor checked it and it was low again, so I was going to need a C-section to avoid unnecessarily stressing him out. They prepped me and Adam got scrubbed up, and shortly after that he was born! Adam saw him first and went with him while we was cleaned up, weighed, measured, and checked out. Then Adam brought him over to me and I was able to kiss his face and touch his hands before they took him away to the nursery and fixed me back up. Shortly afterwards we were all reunited in our hospital room.
We stayed two nights in the hospital and arrived home on Tuesday. Since then we've been experiencing all the joys as well as the sleepless nights of new parenthood, and we are loving every minute of it. We can't believe that he's actually here, that the little heartbeat we saw on the ultrasound at eight weeks pregnant back in November is him! We love him so much that it's impossible to express, and we are so happy to welcome him to both our little family as well as the extended family and friends who have also been anxiously awaiting him and love him too.
Here are some pictures from Isaac's first few days, in the hospital, at home, snuggling, sleeping, and getting baths. Enjoy!