The reason for the lack of posts

Well, I’m going to give this blogging thing another go.  The reason I have been completely inactive on here is because my wife and I had our first baby on October 24th, 2011.  His name is Vincenzo Dante Montecalvo…

Let me start by saying how amazing my wife is.  Not only did she carry my son around in her belly for 9 months with very little complaining but it all ended with an un-medicated, natural, water birth with a midwife.  This was a great experience and I highly recommend it to anyone that is low risk.

Her contractions started early that morning but were not very intense and were pretty spaced out.   Conveniently we already had an appointment with the midwife set for that morning so when we left the house to go we just brought everything with us as if we were going to be staying the rest of the day and possibly that night. 

When we got there , they checked and found that Nicki was already 3cm dilated. They tried to keep us from getting too excited, since excitement can slow labor, and told us to stop timing the contractions (they said you will know when to start timing them again). Go out and do something we wouldn’t be able to do after the baby was born was the advice we received.  So we decided to call a friend and see if she could do a little photo shoot.

We started shooting at 4pm and were all done a little after 4:30pm.  We got some great shots and it was the perfect little distraction – plus who doesn’t want maternity photos?  By the end of the shoot you could see Nicki’s belly changing shape during contractions, so we headed home to relax.

We got home around 5:30pm and by then it was time to start timing the contractions!  I called the midwife at 6:00pm and we were at the birth center by 7pm.  When we got there the contractions slowed back down, which is normal, and the midwife told us we should eat something , relax and she would check Nicki when we were done.  I had made a big container of turkey salad earlier in the day to use for sandwiches, so we each had a one.  About a minute after Nicki finished hers, she had another contraction.  I went and got the midwife. When she checked, Nicki she was 9cm.

For those that don’t know, this is fantastic!  The 7-10cm part of labor, the part right before it’s time to push, is considered the most painful part….and she just ate dinner through it like nothing was happening.  Did I mention yet how amazing my wife is?  The midwife was just as surprised as we were.  She called her assistant and started filling the bathtub (it’s a huge tub that could fit 3 people comfortably).   Around 8:30 we actually got in  and everything really started moving fast.

 

Between contractions at 9:06pm – yes I’m in the tub with her.

Just after the baby is born at 9:51pm.  The cord is still attached and pulsing.

 

 

Here I’m cutting the cord after it stopped pulsing while Nicki holds him – around 10pm.

 

Here is her placenta with the cord – it was super long.

Here I am a couple minutes later holding Vincenzo for the first time at 10:18pm.

 

Nicki a few minutes after that (after a quick shower) with him in bed at 10:27pm.

 

Just before leaving to go home at 2:20am

We were home and in our own bed by 4am.  Life-changing.  That’s what it was.  So after all that and months of very little sleep I think its time  to start trying to post again.  Here are some of the latest pictures…