Forever Starts Today: The One. The Only.

Peter Vincent.

I haven't officially googled the name which will likely return kadrillion results. But as an sane mother would purport, I am undoubtedly, 100% right in saying that my son is totally special and unique.

Mostly, I mean to clear up any question or confusion that the previously known IV is NOT, I repeat - NOT a junior.

We knew we didn't want to name the first son after his father. That's too much specialness for one small child. Luke was our firstborn and the first grandchild on my side. Even though Peter made our list of names early on we allowed it to simmer for a bit. Truth be told, Clement was going to be Peter until Daddy-O won me over in his argument for Clement for the boy name all before the 20th week of gestation.

Peter was worth waiting for in more ways than one. When he finally arrived 10 days after his due date

Yes. Praising God for a natural birth, med free, without Pitocin!!!!! woohoo!

I was pretty grumpy on Sunday- Mothers' Day. I was lector at Mass and certainly grateful for being a mom but pretty crabby since IV was still in utero. Pete was awesome and kept Luke, Augustine, and Clement busy for much of the afternoon mulching and planting flowers in our front flowerbeds. For the evening we headed over to Pete's parents' house. I had been experiencing "crampiness" of sorts throughout the day but nothing that seemed to last longer than 10 seconds and certainly nothing consistent.

We left my in-laws about 9:30pm got the boys in bed at home where Pete promptly fell asleep on the couch and I started feeling some tightness across my lower back . At 10:57 pm I decided to actually pay attention to how long the tightness lasted which had now consisted of back and abdominal contractions. By 11:15 pm the contractions were lasting nearly a minute and less than 5 minutes apart. I called my mom at 11:42 pm. I was on my way down the driveway on my way to our car when she arrived. I paused halfway down to wait out a contraction. We arrived at the hospital at 12:22am. Checked-in got settled in the bed and hooked up to the monitors. The nurse told me to tell her when the contraction ended so she could check me. (moment of truth)

Music to my ears 9 and a half cms!!!! I was worried I'd get there and still have hours of laboring to go but the nurse hurried out of the room saying" I'm going to call the appropriate people." and explained to the other nurse coming in to cut the admittance questionnaire short. The nurse came back in to inform me that the midwife on call lived a ways away and might not make it for the delivery. They introduced me to the attending physician who seemed TOTALLY uninterested in delivery the baby.

I can say that Pitocin free labor was much less painful than the contractions I had with the other boys. In fact, even though I felt the rectal pressure/urge to push I was hesitant to do so because the contractions did not seem that strong to me. Figuring I would wait for a good- hard contraction so I wouldn't spend all night with non-productive pushes served well in buying more time for the midwife to arrive.

Contractions=not so bad

Pushing phase definitely more intense/painful than my other birthing experiences. Then again, Peter was 2.5 pounds heavier than Augustine and Clement and his shoulders are more broad across the chest.

So I guess 3 and a half hours of labor ain't so bad. Quite the reward at the end.

Grandma Angie's inspection

I'm not so crazy about this photo as it doesn't highlight my finest features, although cut me some slack people, I just pushed out a nearly eleven pound baby less than two days prior!! What I love though, is Augustine glowing with pride and Clement's studious gaze as he inspects his new baby brother and ponders what it might mean for him.

Peter's cord fell off sooner than the other boys but we had other issues to deal with early on. Because of his size they monitored his blood sugar levels for the first 30 hours after birth concerned about diabetes. His numbers were stellar every time so they actually stopped poking him for blood samples earlier than the usual 48 hours. Still while in the hospital he deferred during his hearing test. This called for a follow-up at Akron Childrens' to do another type of screening to rule out early onset hearing loss that may be caused by a virus and thus preventable. After the two hour session he was clear on all counts and there's been no further concern about his hearing since.

The on call pediatrician also sent an EKG to the specialists and our pediatrician but again no reason for further concern. The pediatrician was very nice and thorough calming our fears in explaining that the not-so-tiny child was working quite hard to assimilate to the new environment out side of the womb and it might take a little bit of time for all the systems to get into gear. Peter Vincent is most certainly "into gear" now: listening intently to choo choos in the distance, snapping to attention at the sound of his name, joining into loud conversation in his own language to make sure his voice is heard, pulling himself up and scooching furniture across the floor, clapping his hands when we mention patty-cake, figuring out the intricacies of the itsy bitsy spider and sampling foods like a champ.

Oh gosh! They are such good big brothers. I am particularly enjoying watching Clement and Peter build their relationship. Clement does his best to keep up with Luke and Augustine but they enjoy teaming up against the poor little dude. I can only imagine the amount of mischief Clement and Peter will get into together and likely find their own way to tease Luke and Augustine.