Congratulations!

It's a boy.

Alton James was born yesterday at 9:32 am, after a short (seriously short) labor. He's awesome. He weighed 9 pounds, 3 ounces at birth and measured 21.25 inches long.

For those who want the gruesome details, read on. For those who'd just as soon pretend babies are born bathed in rosewater and starshine, feel free to skip the following.

Friday night, I slept on the downstairs couch. I just didn't feel up to going up all those stairs at bedtime. Eric woke me up just before six, though, so I went upstairs then. I laid down next to Dan, and then felt sort of a pop in my lower abdomen. Uh oh. "Dan, I think my water just broke. Go get me a towel."

We then spent twenty minutes talking about what we should do. Finally, we reached the point of "CALL THE DOCTOR." I don't know why this was a hard decision to make. . . just that it was. We also called my mom to come get Eric. The dr said to go to the hospital, so I took a shower while I had the chance. Fed the cat, fed the fish, fed the seven year old, fed the husband. . .

You may have noticed. . .no mention of contractions. That's accurate. They didn't start till seven, and didn't get *really* bad till we were at the hospital.

Labor took hardly anytime at all. I did get an epidural, but I don't think it was optimized before time to push. I had to push through two, maybe three contractions, and he was born. EVERYone was surprised at the speed.

I won't kid you--it hurt, a lot. But it only hurt "a lot" for a little while.

We're all doing great. Eric's excited to be a big brother, and it's wonderful to see.

The hospital pictures won't be up for awhile. They CALL it "webnursery" but that's not exactly what it is. I'll keep you posted tho!