Our new addition

November 17, Ethan Frederick Weddle joined the world at 8.5 lbs and 20 inches long. I finally have some time to document the whole experience, about 2 months down the road!

Mom came out to Texas Thursday morning and I was scheduled to induce Friday night. We spent a few days just hanging out and wrapping up some loose ends. Mom got to see my last ultra sound on Thursday morning. Ethan was a full grown ball of love inside me. Friday night I went in around 10pm. I was hooked up to all the monitors by 12am. The nurse slipped a pill inside me to begin the induction. I didn't get a lot of sleep because the bed was oh-so comfortable and the nurse kept coming in to see how much I'd dilated. By 6 am, I had only dilated to about 2cm. At 7:00 I called Nathan to come to the hospital.

Oh... why wasn't Nathan there at the hospital, you ask? Because I was wife of the year and told him to go to the Tool concert in downtown Houston. He had a blast. I figured he just had to be out of there by 12am in case I induced fast but we knew that wasn't the case. I knew if Ethan could, he'd stay in past his due date! Everyone joked around with me that "Nathan owes you big time." But the truth is that I owed Nathan. He had been putting Sydney down and entertaining her for months while I sat around and baked Ethan up. The concert was my gift to him.

So Nathan shows up around 8am... nicely showered. Told him to take a shower the second he got home because I didn't want him smelling like smoke if he had to come at 3am. The nurse had started petocin at 7:30am.

At about 9am, I was thankful for my prenatal yoga classes. I was breathing through my contractions really well, while watching Pride and Prejudice. Mom has been getting me ice and sitting by ready for me to pop out a baby.

At about 9:30 am ish I'm bouncing on my fit ball through the contractions. The bouncing relieved the pressure I was feeling. Both kids felt like major menstrual cramps. Nathan starts suggesting we get the epidural in. I caved in about 10:15 when I was starting to feel a bit more pain.

When the anesthesiologist came in around 10:45/11ish, I was in some real pain. The fit ball wasn't doing it and neither was my "calm" playlist on my ipod. I was now listening to my workout music with the faster beat and words to sing to. I'm sure I sounded great belting out songs to keep my mind off the contractions. The fit ball lost it's effectiveness as well. I was now walking in a 3 foot circle and bouncing my body around to relieve the pressure. Couldn't walk very far since I was hooked up to 3 different things. The anesthesiologist wouldn't let Nathan or mom stay in the room. I was freaking out and crying as they left. I HATE needles. But all in all, it wasn't as bad as when I had Sydney.

By 11:30 the pain still hadn't stopped... it had lessened but not stopped. Got my guy in there again to give me more drugs around 11:50ish. I was feeling good....

Started to watch another movie, can't remember what though.

At 12:45, the nurse came in and said the baby is about to come. Dr. Schmidt was in there about five minutes later. At 12:55, she's telling me to push. They had set up a mirror too. Remember that Sydney took a long time and I knew if I could see the birth this time, it'd be easier for me mentally. I saw myself dilated alot... lots of blood around the area. I took a deep breadth and pushed 3 hard pushes and you could just see Ethan coming out. She told me to stop. Then go again... 2 hard pushes and he popped right out at 1:06pm. I think it was a little earlier than that. I noticed that the dr's don't really look at the time when these babies are born. Both times, Nathan had to find the time for the dr's. I liked 1:06 because I was born at 12:06AM.

Ethan was SOOOOO blue! I didn't remember Sydney being blue. He had this amazing full head of hair, it was crazy. He sat on me for about an hour. The nurses cleaned him out while he was on me. I tried nursing right away. they took him to a table near by for a few minutes to clean him up but I got him for about an hour or two. they cleaned me up really well, don't remember pushing the placenta out like a did Sydney. After those 2 hours, they took him to the nursery to do all the tests. I couldn't walk because of the drugs.

Got to my room and was able to rest a bit more while the nursery still had E. He was brought in and I just tried to feed him a lot. He was just so tiny. He was so much smaller than Sydney around the hips... didn't want to break him. He would fall asleep and every 2 hours he'd be wheeled back in to eat with me. He turned out to have a good suck.

On Sunday, mom brought Sydney over so she could see him. We got some cute pictures. I was recovering really well. I was in much better shape this time around leading up to the pregnancy. I bounced right back. Sunday night, we were home around 8:30 with Ethan.

our first night was hard.... expected him to be as challenging as Sydney. He wanted to suck all night. Second night gave him a pacifier and that lasted about 3 days before he rejected it. By Tuesday I was calling a lactation specialist. My nipples were being demolished. She said my nipples were large and that he'd have to grow into them. I was devastated as I was in pain! But I persevered... I had to get through the 3 week growth spurt to get on the upswing. Once that first 3 weeks were done, we were smooth sailing. Breastfeeding has been an amazing experience. It's easy and I'm close to Ethan. Ethan established a very predictable schedule. I was afraid to be home with him, but he was so easy. He was my little man and made the days easy.