He’s here!
Desmond Emery was born Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 6:47pm. He was 7 lbs, 5.5 oz—he came about 2.5 weeks early (remember how I kept saying I thought he’d come early? See, I knew! I had a feeling throughout the entire pregnancy that he would be a little early).
We got a surprise at around 3am Monday morning, when my water broke. However, it was followed by only sporadic, non-regular contractions; my body did not go into labor. As I wanted to avoid an induction, I tried all day to start labor naturally, but to no avail. We passed the 24 hour mark and on Tuesday morning I went in to see my midwife, who was very concerned and said that we needed to induce immediately due to the risk of infection. I reluctantly agreed, since in this case induction finally seemed warranted (not only is pitocin risky, but I’ve heard nothing but horror stories of how hard it makes it to labor naturally). But I was determined to still have my natural, epidural-free birth, despite having to submit to the IV & pitocin…and…I did it! 
We checked into the hospital and I was started on pitocin at 2pm; at the time it was started, I was only 3cm dilated. Nothing happened for an hour, so they kept bumping up the dose. At 4pm I finally started having regular contractions and they kept bumping up the dose till they were 2 minutes apart. It was a very intense labor—2.5 hours later I was completely dilated, ready to push…less than 10 minutes later, he was born. His cord was wrapped twice around his neck and it took him a while to get his breathing together, but he was fine.
We had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours, due to their fear of infection, but we came home last night. Gray is absolutely infatuated with his little brother, at least for the time being. 
It’s so strange to me to have a real newborn-sized baby this time! He looks nearly identical to how Gray looked as a newborn, only he’s much smaller/skinnier, and he has blonde hair (Gray’s was dark brown at birth). Philip deserves a medal for getting me through the labor—as do my doula, my midwife Jenny, and one very dedicated L&D nurse—they all worked hard to help me have the natural labor and birth that I wanted. Most of all I’m thankful to God who helped me get through it, and who made sure little Desmond arrived safely to our family.
I’ll get around to writing a detailed birth story soon. It was a really enjoyable birth, despite the intensity. It turned out how I’d dreamed it would, thanks to answered prayer and my support team. Philip took pictures during the last stage of labor, just before Desmond was born; they made a nice pictorial of those last minutes. I’m not sure I ever want to share those, though—they are scary! 
As I said, it was intense, and the pictures captured it well.
In the meantime, here are some non-scary pictures of Desmond & our family.
Just born, still attached to mama:
2 hours old, looking exactly like big brother G (only skinnier!):
G meets Desmond:
G is nuts about his little brother, and this pic captures his excitement:
Again, looking so much like G did:
G gets to hold him:
Finally, at home:
We’ve been just hanging out here at home, trying to settle in. He’s sleeping decently, giving us at least 2 hour stretches through the night, but sometimes 3 hours, which feels heavenly! He’s nursing beautifully; he latched on perfectly the very first time and has been a really good nurser ever since. G has been doing so well with the adjustment. He hasn’t seemed jealous, but instead has seemed rather happy to have Desmond here. In fact, it’s hard to get him to leave him alone! It’s been hard trying to give G the attention he needs, while trying to constantly meet the needs of a new baby, but I know it’ll get easier. It’s lots of work! But I’ve really been enjoying him, which is good because I had such a hard time during the first days & weeks with G. I didn’t enjoy it at all, so this time has been different so far. Physically, I’m feeling great. I had no tearing at all, and I was only slightly sore for the first day after the birth. Everything is so different this time; second babies apparently are much easier on the body than first babies are!
