Baby baby baby
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kettunainen, optimystik and I are delighted to announce the birth of
AIDAN SEBASTIAN WARNER-LANDSTREET
Born at 4:40 am, Thursday, July 26, 2007
At St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
8 pounds, 8 ounces.
Baby, both moms and dad are all doing fine, if somewhat exhausted.
Pictures - apologies for the quality, but they were taken with my cell phone/PDA. Better pictures coming later.
Just born, and still getting toweled off.
Having his first checkup from a nurse, with my hand at his side to comfort him.
Being held by me.
Getting his first meal, from kettunainen.
And now, in answer to the two questions almost everyone who knows us is sure to ask:
1. One baby? But I thought you were expecting twins...
So did we. :-/ kettunainen was very, very sure of it and all early signs seemed to point solidly in that direction. But she never actually had an ultrasound, due to (a) a general desire to keep the pregnancy and birth as natural and low-tech as possible, and (b) specific concerns about some research that seems to show a correlation between ultrasound exposure and learning disabilties and hearing loss. So we were rather shocked to discover there was only one in there...
There may in fact have initially been two; apparently it is not uncommon for two fertilized eggs to implant, but one to eventually be rejected or reabsorbed. So you can in fact start out with two embryos and end up with only one baby. There's no way to know for sure if that's what happened, but that's our best guess, anyway. She did distinctly feel two ovulations and two sets of implantation pains, plus have a positive pregnancy test several days before you're supposed to have enough hormonal changes to be able to (which is typical for twin births).
Anyway, one happy healthy baby is still good news, though of course it came as a bit of a shock, and it's going to take some adjustment. Not to mention requiring us to reassess some of the stuff we bought or were gifted with, as there's now too much of some things, and others that are just not needed any more, like the various books on multiple birth and multiple parenting. Though we may yet hang onto those for possible future use, as twins *do* run in Angela's family - her sister actually has two sets! And it would really suck to get rid of all the twin stuff and then have her *next* pregnancy be twins...
2. Hospital? But I thought you were planning a home birth...
We were. :-( And we gave it our best try. But after nearly 20 hours of labour, the last six of which were so intense that there was virtually no break between contractions, and yet no sign of the baby getting ready to be born, Kettu had pretty much run out of energy and endurance, so we called an ambulance and transferred to the hospital.
So we did not get anything like the natural birth we wanted, but we got a healthy mother and baby and that's what counts. And really, for a hospital birth it wasn't at all bad. They did do a few things we didn't like, like clamping and cutting the cord immediately (despite a recent study that made most of the major papers, showing that delaying that by even two minutes is substantially better for the baby), but apart from that they were really flexible and respectful of our wishes. And at least she didn't have to have a Caesarian, which we had been really afraid she would. So all in all it was still a pretty good experience. Apart from the 26-hours-of-labour part, anyway.
And now, I am going to have a bath and sleep, two things I have not been able to do for around 48 hours, and really need to. Kettu and Aidan come home tomorrow afternoon. For those of you who are local, or planning to travel here, please don't all show up right away - we're all pretty exhausted and likely to need a little recovery time. But feel free to check in with us after tomorrow, and we'll let you know when might be a good time.
happy but tired
