Little Brother

Baby Cruz is in da house! Cooper's little brother is here. Born August 6th at 11:27am. 7lbs 11 oz/21 inches. Once he was ready to make his appearance, he wasn't messin' around. It was a pretty quick process. I started feeling pretty severe contractions Thursday night. The contractions were strong enough that I had my Dad help me start timing how far apart they were. They were about 10 to 15 minutes apart and I had been having Braxton Hicks for a couple of weeks so I decided (out of denial) that I would just go to bed because sleep sounded much better than giving birth.

At about 4:45 am Friday morning, I woke up and it was obvious that it was time (I'll spare the details). By 7:00 am we were at the hospital and by 8:30am I was given an epidural. I was honestly looking forward to a relaxing morning knowing that Cooper was in good hands with my parents and thought I'd have time to soak in the moment, do a little reading or watch some Non-Nickelodeon tv programming in my hospital room all while being hopped up on my epidural. But baby Cruz was ready! By 10:45 am I thought the nurses better check things out because things were feeling "different" down there and it was time! It happened so quickly that my epidural wasn't quite strong enough so they hurried and called the anesthesiologist while warning me that we might not have time to "kick it up a notch" and the epidural might have to stay at the strength it was (yikes!!). The anesthesiologist gave me a little boost and told me it would take about 15 minutes to notice any difference. Believe you me, I was holding him to that and watching the clock like a hawk. Let's just say the epidural was "adequate" and luckily Cruz was on the move. He arrived 17 minutes after I started pushing and just in time for the doc to take over for the nurses.

The rest of the story plays out like one would expect. We were overjoyed and relieved that our little guy was healthy and couldn't wait for Cooper to come meet his brother. My parents brought Coop by later that afternoon and Cooper was mesmerized at first but quickly moved on and wanted to check out my cool "hotel room". He was more interested in helping out the nurses. They were so sweet to include him in everything. He even got to help take some of his brother's blood work to the lab all by himself with the nurse.

We are now home and settling in. Cooper is having a blast playing with Gma and Gpa and checking out his brother while Mom and Dad are quickly being reminded of what life with a newborn is all about. Life is good. Even if sleep isn't really a part of it at the moment.

Before shot - Right after I was given my epidural. Ahhhhhhh.....

Baby Cruz

23 minutes old.

Proud Daddy.

First Bath


Coop meeting baby brother for the first time.

His first reaction.

Nurse Cooper.

Mark was nice enough to take a photo of the poster hanging in the hospital bathroom. A (not so) subtle reminder of my new life.

Thank-you Mark for putting up with me throughout this entire pregnancy and for being an amazing team mate as we welcomed baby Cruz to the world. I don't know how you put up with me (I could barely put up with myself). Here's to our next step as we enter this new chapter of parenthood. Buckle up Buttercup.