I figured now is as good a time as any to introduce you all to the newest member of our family. It was quite a long journey. Poor Jody thought at one point that he would never come. It didn't help that 2 weeks before her due date the midwives were telling her that the baby was going to come any day.
So needless to say poor Jody was trying every trick in the book to try and speed up labor. We were taking long family walks, she was drinking lots of raspberry tea, taking herbal supplements, hot baths, numerous stretch and sweeps from the midwives. At one point she was even doing jumping jacks in the living room. Nothing seemed to work. Once her due date rolled around, she was resigned to the fact that she was never going to have the baby. On a side note, it worked out perfectly for me as I had a fantasy hockey draft to attend on the due date, so already I can tell my new boy was going to be another hockey fan...
Back to the story though. The next day on the 7th, our midwife came to visit Jody after lunch. She visited with Jody, gave her another stretch and sweep, and then after no signs of labor she left. Jody then decided to go to the grand opening of the new Shoppers Drugmart, while I stayed home with Colton and we napped. Jody came home around 4:00 and told me she was feeling some cramps, which didn't get me excited. She'd been having those for weeks. Later Colton woke up and I grabbed him and we went downstairs to begin watching the opening game of the NHL season. Jody came back around 5:20 and said the cramps were getting stronger, and to start timing them. They were about 5-6 minutes apart and 30 seconds long, but they were somewhat erratic. We called the midwife and she said to time them for another half hour and call her back. We called her back with the contractions staying a bit more constant, and now 4-5 minutes apart. She told us to get ready to go to the hospital, and that she was on her way to check Jody out and confirm labour. After we hung up the phone the contractions went down again to 6-7 minutes, so I thought "false labor again". Our midwife arrived at about 6:15 and took a quick look at Jody and told us that she was in labor and going very fast. She told us in her opinion if we were going to make it to the hospital, we needed to get an ambulance, or do the birth at home. None of us, including the midwife; ideally wanted to do the birth at home, but Jody felt the pain was so bad that she couldn't even move and opted to stay home.
With that choice out of the way the midwife put me to work immediately finding supplies as she ran out to her car to grab her materials. At this point it's 6:45. At about 6:50 Jody's contractions got worse and the midwife put her in a warm bath to try and take off some of the edge. She then asked me to go get a towel to put behind Jody's head. I wasn't even down the hall way when she told me to get back asap. I grabbed the towel and ran back to find the baby's head already out! We had planned to move Jody back to the bed for the delivery, but apparently he had other plans. With no turning back, Jody began to push at 6:58 and by 7:05 Hayden Denver Crane was born.
It was insane how quickly it went, and how healthy both he and mom were after it all. Never in a million years, did I think we'd have a baby at home, or that quickly! On top of it all, he made it just in time for the Calgary Flames home opener!, once all the dust settled and Jody was resting, I took Hayden down to watch the game with me. The midwives were fantastic by the way. I was amazed at their preparedness. I wish I had taken a picture of our bedroom, it literally looked like a hospital room. They were very good with Jody, cleaned up everything for us, and when they left, you wouldn't have known we had just had a baby. By the way, anyone wondering, we had some friends take Colton for the night when we called the midwives, just to be safe. He was not present for the labor.
Anyhow, enough from me, here are some photo's for your viewing pleasure.................................
Hayden Denver Crane born October 7, 2010 @ 7:05 pm. (Minutes after his birth) Notice all the brown straight hair! totally opposite of his big brothers blond curly hair.
