And now, Baby Jack!

Darci is still at the hospital, so I get to wrap up the pregnancy and announce the arrival of our son, Jackson on Monday March 10th, 2008! He finally decided to join us at 1:40 pm, after approximately 24 hours and 10 minutes of labor. Fortunately for Darci, she only had to push about 5 times to get him to come on out.

He was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21.5 inches long. His APGAR score (which I had never heard of previously) was 9.9 out of 10, and supposedly they never issue 10's!

Since the rest of the family is itching for pictures, it is my task to get a few posted up here this morning, so here goes:

Here is the final "weekly" picture, on Saturday night before being induced on Sunday morning.










Here we are right before we left for the hospital.











Here Darci is after getting situated into her delivery room and receiving her IV and monitor attachments.







The excited Grandmothers and Aunts-to-be patiently wait on Sunday afternoon.







I tried to comfort Darci as best I could through each contraction. All I could manage was to hold her hand through the pain and chat in-between. As the night progressed, the pains got worse (as the Pitocin was increased), and eventually at 11pm, Darci capitulated and asked for an epidural. 3 sets of needles and an hour later, she finally received a bit of relief.



Here is the updated patient board, with the "new" plan for Monday... HAVE BABY NOW! Darci's OB, Dr. Stephens, predicted a delivery time of 1:30 PM, which considering it was 6am at the time and she was dialated to 4cm seemed a bit hopeful. We were all amazed at her skills of prediction when baby Jack was actually delivered at 1:40!



After the contractions reached a certain strength, even the epidural didn't relieve all the pain. Here is Darci about an hour before the baby arrived, doing her best to make it through the home stretch. At this point, the nurse came in and checked her, and told her she was at 9.5. The doctor was called shortly after, and they told us it would be "about an hour" until we had our baby!


Finally, after all the anticipation, it's "go" time! Here's Dr. Stephens, in full battle gear. Darci managed a smile and seemed to do well throughout the actual delivery (which as you can see by the time on the clock of 12:37, only took about 3 minutes).





The excited new mother, immediately upon receiving baby Jackson into her arms. Grandma Kathy did well not to interfere or ask any questions during the delivery, and was happy to see the newest addition to the family.





A better shot of the baby, who barely cried at all, even a few hours after being delivered. Hopefully that bodes well for the future (probably not, but try not to spoil our fantasy for the time being).

He sure hated his first bath, though! I'll save that blog post for Darci since I was videotaping and don't have any pictures (we'll have to get Grandma Jan to send us a few of hers).


Baby Jack, who at this point was agitated that we forced him to come out. He had quite the cone head to show for his efforts.







Here Dr. Stephens and I pose with the star of the show, who at this point has gotten over his fright and is now commencing to look at everything around him. Dr. Stephens was great throughout the whole process, and I'm glad that Darci decided to choose her as her OB. She was a lot of fun, and let us have both Grandmothers in during the delivery.



The first of the aunties to get her mitts on the new arrival was my sister Ashley, who stayed with the chatty Grandmothers in the waiting room all night on Sunday and all day Monday.






Grandma Jan with her very first Grandbaby!








Here's Grandma Kathy, who has made lots of new friends at the hospital over the past few days. She was also in charge of the "baby journal", which she did a great job at!






Here we can see that Baby Jack inherited daddy's long toes. Fortunately for him, he didn't get daddy's ears and nose too. He did appear to get my high hairline, and all things considered, he seemed to fare well in the genetic lottery.








Darci and Jack, in the recovery room. Darci had quite a bad dose of nausea after the delivery, so we were all happy to see her somewhat recovered from that a few hours later as the rest of my family arrived to meet the newest addition.





I figured I should get in some lap time before everyone else arrives!











Grandpa Rod finally gets his chance to meet the new guy.








And finally, Aunt Holly, who had to wait very patiently while everyone was holding the baby. She was finally rewarded with a turn of her own (she'll get more than she wants in the future, as the designated "go-to" babysitter). :)





So that's it. I feel guilty stealing the capstone post of Darci's blog, but since she won't even be discharged until Wednesday around lunchtime, it might otherwise be awhile before she gets a chance to blog. I'm sure there will be plenty of new things to blog about very soon!

Finally, thanks to all who sent messages of support during the pregnancy and delivery, they were all very much appreciated. And special thanks to Grandma Kathy, who flew out from Utah to assist with the new arrival. We need all the help we can get!