Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Wright Again

“I think we’ve played this out.” With this assessment from Jill’s OB at her weekly visit at 39 weeks and 3 days we entered the home stretch of Baby Dub #2’s arrival. We quickly picked up Anderson and left him at home with super-neighbor Sarah Brown before heading to Vanderbilt Medical Center. Meanwhile, Sassy, Papa & WaWa (the grandparents) jumped in the car & started their 7+ hour race across the mountains to join us in Music City.

By 7pm Nurse Kim had Jill settled into room 11 and Jonathan began the “Dublivery” tunes spinning. After a litany of consults the first dose of Pitocin was administered around 9:15 after which we rested as much as possible to the quiet sounds of a rapid heart beat on the monitor. At 1:30am we entered “active labor” and shortly thereafter Jill was “comfortably numb” although Pink Floyd was not part of the playlist. Our parents made a groggy arrival around 3 a.m. and after a short visit they set up camp and caught some zzzz’s in those oh-so-comfortable (Sleep #0) waiting room chairs.

Just after 5:00am Jill reported that she felt some pressure/movement downward. Dr. Mody’s hasty consult revealed that the baby had dropped and that Jill was a full 10cm dilated at which point things moved very quickly. Before I could even give the grandparents a heads up the “let’s try a test push” turned into a mad scramble of staff & equipment as Jill put her previous delivery skills to work. She was determined to avoid the grueling 2.5 hours of active pushing from Anderson but she exceeded even her own expectations by pushing him out with 4 or 5 pushes in just a handful of minutes. The staff quickly placed the baby on Jill’s chest for the ever-important skin-on-skin time so we both discovered together – at 5:41am on April 20 - that our new little one was another son.

Nathan Carl produced the expected wail and immediately began rooting around. Nathan is a tribute to a paternal great uncle (as well as a nod to Daddy) and Carl gives a nod to great-grandfathers on both sides of the family. After cuddling briefly Jonathan escorted Nathan to the nursery where they hoped to get his slightly low body temperature up a bit. The staff then got Jill patched up and she visited with the surprised grandparents while Nathan had another check-up and first bath. By 8:15 Nathan & I rejoined Jill so that he could get some breakfast. Later in the morning Sharon, Dave & Regina went to our house to take over Anderson duties and get some desperately needed rest. Later that afternoon they returned to the hospital with Anderson in tow where he met his little brother for the first time. Nathan was thoughtful enough to get his big brother two books with lots of pictures of dogs so Anderson was immediately won over. In fact, he seems to be taking his big brother responsibilities quite seriously as he decided to take his first steps for mommy & daddy in the hospital room.

We are touched by and so appreciative of the slew of calls, texts and Facebook well wishes. Indeed, it takes a village to raise a child and we are fortunate to have so many generous and supportive people with whom to share this magical journey.

Nathan Carl Wright
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
5:41am, 7 lbs. 7oz.

1 comment:

  1. Love hearing how this all unfolded. Congrats again! We can't believe Nathan will be Anderson's age before we'll get to meet him. :-( Keep the photos coming!

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