The Arrival of Jeffrey Lang Savage Jr.

Jeff and I are so proud to announce the birth of our precious baby boy!  Jeffrey Lang was born on Wednesday, September 14th at 11:28pm.  He weighed 8.9lbs and measured 22 inches long.  (holy cow - LONG baby!)  Despite having to undergo the stress of an emergency c-section, he emerged absolutely perfect and is a strong and healthy boy!  Seeing him for the first time was easily the most amazing moment of my life.  Hands down.  

So, I thought I would recap the story of his arrival through the pictures below.  It didn't go quite as we had expected, but thanks to modern medicine and an amazing staff at Christ Hospital, we now have a healthy baby boy.

9/13: 8 days past due!
11:00pm:  Jeff and I arrived at the hospital to begin the Cervidil, which would hopefully jump start my labor.  Here I am in my hospital gown - still feeling good and ready to have this baby!

Here is what turned out to be our last picture together as a 'family of two'.

The labor & delivery rooms at Christ are quite nice...

And include a beautiful view of downtown Cincinnati!  (so much for delivering on Labor Day (my due date) and having front row seats to the downtown fireworks show!)  Oh well.

We didn't get much sleep that night.  Hospital beds are not comfortable and there were nurses in and out all night.  Yuck.

9/14: Let's have this baby!!
12:30pm: The Cervidil worked!  2 cm dilated.  Dr. Wendel came in to pronounce that my labor had officially started and proceeded to break my water.  (OUCH!)  We were having this baby.

ice chips, ice chips, ice chips... and one cherry popsicle later...

6:00pm: 4cm dilated and having mild/moderate contractions.  I took a 'soothing' shower and bounced around on the birthing ball (ie: yoga ball) while Jeff so generously massaged my lower back.  He was an awesome labor coach!

7:00pm: Still 4cm dilated, but hell-oooo really PAINFUL contractions!  Let's just say that I have a new respect for all women who deliver with no pain medication.  Holy schmoly - bring on the epidural...  NOW!

8:00pm: 9cm dilated!  That's right folks, I went from 4cm to 9cm dilated in one hour.  Thank God for epidurals, that's all I can tell you.  I've somehow managed to block out the pain from my mind and don't really remember much of the details.  Maybe that's why people go on to have more than one child :)

9:30pm: 10cm dilated!  Hooray! Time to start pushing.  Cleansing breathe in and out - and - PUSH!

10:00pm: No progress.  Unfortunately, every time I pushed, the baby's heart rate would plummet down around the 60-70 bpm range (and should have been around 130-150bpm), so we would wait for it to come back up before trying to push again.  Not good.  Not good at all.

10:30pm: Sally, our awesome nurse has me turn and push on my left side.  She thinks that the umbilical cord is either being pinched or is wrapped around our little guy's neck.  She pages our doctor.

10:45pm: Dr. Wendel arrives and tells me that the baby needs to be delivered quickly due to the frequent drops in his heart rate.  There is definitely a problem with the umbilical cord and he doesn't want to endanger the baby.  So on to plan B: C-Section!  I think my eyes probably about popped out of my head.  I hadn't read or prepared myself at all for this.  I started shaking like a leaf as tons of people arrived in our room and I was quickly wheeled down the hallway to the OR.  Jeff was also whisked away and gowned while they gave me more drugs and prepped me for the surgery.  Was this really about to happen?!?

11:00pm: Here's a shot of the operating room (the anaesthesiologist took the liberty of taking some pictures - we didn't even have to ask - awesome!)  Thankfully Jeff arrived just as they made the incision... and the C-section was underway.

That's our OB, Dr. Wendel, on the right side in the black cap.

Scalpel, please...

Here comes our little guy's cone-shaped head!  Look at that hair! :)  His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, but thankfully, it was not a problem anymore.

11:28pm: Jeffrey Lang Savage Jr. is BORN!  How amazing is the photo below?

He's a big boy!  8.9 pounds, 22 inches

Look at that cone head!  That's what pushing for 1.5 hours does for you.

I was able to crane my neck around to see our baby boy for the very first time on the exam table behind us.  That's when we first heard him cry, too.

And then finally, I got to see him up close.  How incredible of a moment - and such a relief that he was okay.

And then his proud daddy got to hold him, too.

We were then moved into the recovery room so that we could hold our baby and invite our parents back to meet their new grandson.

Hello world.

Then daddy went with the nurse to help give him his very first bath.  He wasn't such a fan of having his hair washed...

But soon he was all dry and warm again.  Hey little guy!

2:00am: Ready to go to our postpartum room.  Night night little guy.  We love you so much already.

And that's the story of our little guy's arrival.  It didn't obviously didn't go quite the way that we had planned, but in the end, little Jeffrey was delivered safely. We are so thankful to everyone at the Christ Hospital for their excellent care that night and over the course of our stay.  They were wonderful!

We also wanted to say thank you for all of the prayers and well-wishes that we've received over the past months.  We have truly been blessed.  God is good!

We'll be posting more pictures of the little guy soon.  Stay tuned!