He's HERE!!

Well, as I'm sure you've heard, Ronan Borom was born on Jan. 21, 2009 at 3:58 p.m.

Everything went really well. They started the medicine to dilate my cervix around 7 p.m. Tuesday night. Contractions started almost at once, but they were relatively mild. By 6 a.m. I was 3 cm dilated and they started the pitocin. Unfortunately, while that really upped the contraction intensity, I didn't dilate any further. They broke my water around 10 a.m., which also increased the intensity, but I barely made it to 4 cm by noon. At that point, I decided to get an epi (although initially I wanted to go without). It was a good decision for me. I hadn't slept at all the night before (really REALLY uncomfortable bed) and I was getting exhausted. After the epi, I was able to sleep, although they also put an oxygen mask on me. Then they put internal monitors on because they were having trouble keeping the baby on the monitor and his heartbeat had been dropping. As always though, my doctors were fantastic and felt we could keep going.

But by 3, I was fully dilated and ready to push. They actually had to page Tom because he had left the room (his mom had shown up). He came in and held one of my legs and we started pushing. At the end, they got the vacuum out and at 3:58, Ronan was born. He was 6lbs, 12oz and 20 inches long. He has a TON of hair and it's brown with blonde highlights. Seriously, it looks like he had a stylist in the womb. Everyone's been commenting on it.

We're all doing well. Breastfeeding has been a bit of a challenge, but overall it's going well. He does great on the left side, but really struggles on the right. Last night was kind of rough - he really wanted to eat, but got himself all worked up and was screaming and turning red. Eventually we were able to get him to eat a little on the left side. Overall, he seems to just want to cuddle up with me. Of course, if I try to move him, he starts crying again.

He was circ'd this morning and did pretty well, or so the doctor said. Neither Tom nor I watched. The pediatrician came in twice and said he's in great shape. Oddly enough, he didn't lose any weight from birth and actually is now an ounce heavier than when he was born. That has really helped me feel better about the whole breastfeeding thing.

Anyway, that's where we are. The dogs are slowly adjusting to him, so we're keeping a very close eye on them, but so far (knock on wood) no problems. Shadow is currently sitting next to the carseat on the couch, keeping watch. Pictures are up on Flickr. Here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23649161@N05/

I'll post more when I get a chance. Thanks for all the well-wishes!