Hi! I'm New Here...

Well, this is me. I know, I know, I'm cute as a button! I was born at Kaiser Walnut Creek on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 5:47 pm. I weighed 9 lb 7 oz and measured 21" long (which is apparently quite large, as EVERYONE commented on it). My birth story is quite exciting (at least we think so!) and started at 4:30 am on Thursday, June 19. Mommy May and I woke up feeling contractions, and they started to get more regular by 6:30 am that morning. Mommy May was a little worried they might still be false alarms, since it was still a little early for me to arrive, but Daddy May decided to stay home from work just in case. For the most part, we were all pretty comfortable; the contractions were about 45 seconds long and 7 minutes apart for most of the day. They really didn't start to progress until after 10:00 pm Thursday night. By then, Mommy May was feeling pretty tired, I think.

When the contractions were consistently a minute long and 5 minutes or less apart, Daddy May called Kaiser to see when we should go in. One problem with the labor was that Mommy May's blood pressure was very high. Nani (who used to be a nurse) brought her kit over and kept checking Mommy May, but her blood pressure didn't go down. They decided to wait and go in to the hospital after trying to get a little sleep, but, as soon as Mommy May got in bed, she felt a really strong contraction. All of a sudden, I felt a pop near my head, and some of my water started gushing out! Well, needless to say, we all packed up and headed off to the hospital!

They settled us into our room, and all 3 of us dozed a bit off and on through the night. By morning, the doctor was concerned that the contractions weren't progressing, and we were all worried that Mommy May would end up too exhausted for the harder part if we didn't speed things up. So they gave Mommy May some medicine to move things along faster, and, boy, did it work! Mommy May was 2 cm dilated when we arrived at the hospital, and 4 cm dilated mid-afternoon on Friday. Over the next hour, even with pain medicine, Mommy May started having a REALLY hard time with all the contractions (which were coming one right after the other). When they checked again, Mommy May had gone from 4 cm to 10 cm in just over an hour! Ouch! The rest passed very, very quickly... Mommy May pushed me out in about 30 minutes! All of the hospital staff kept telling her she was a champion pusher, but I know I helped a lot too by scooting down.

Soon after I was born, Daddy May took this picture, which pretty much summed up how Mommy May felt after giving birth:


She was mostly kidding, though, and proceeded to give me lots of love and kisses:

Here's me with my proud Papa, too!

Here I am with my Yin-Yin, in between wardrobe changes:

Nani came to see me, too, and I rewarded her by sticking out my tongue:

That was my first day of life here on Planet Earth. We're all home now; more to come on that soon!