beautiful beautiful beautiful boy

here are some pictures of our wyatt and all of us in our new family element!

the birth

so...i've told the birth story a few times over the phone, but i'll post it here for those of you who are interested that i haven't spoken to...wyatt's actual due date was january 11th, but i put it out into the universe that scott and i were ready for the baby to come any time after 37 weeks (when we could safely deliver at the birthing center). our good friends delivered their son 9 days early, so i figured we could too:) on january 1st, after a pretty low key new years eve, scott and i decided to get out and go for a walk to get out of the house. we thought it would be a change of pace to walk to my mom's apartment down the hill from us. it took us about 45 minutes, but was well worth the effort. i was having contractions the whole time, but nothing that progressed to regular intervals. we rested up for a bit and hitched a ride home from my mom (the walk home is up a pretty steep hill that i didn't quite feel up to). once we got home i started to feel some stronger contractions, but again, nothing that progressed to the point where we thought we might actually be in labor. by later in the evening though, the contractions had reached the point where i was having trouble doing anything other than breathing through them. we had been coached that it wasn't time to come to the birth center until you couldn't speak through a contraction. so around 9:30 that night we decided (despite feeling guilty for calling on a holiday) to check in with the midwife on call. ann called back within a few minutes to check in and talked to scott while i rocked back and forth on the yoga ball. she suggested that we wait it out a bit longer, eat some dinner, drink some wine, take a bath and try to get some sleep, because if i was going into labor, i'd want to be rested. we started timing the contractions on and off, but noticed that they were strong, but quite erratic. by 11:15 pm it was evident that whatever i was experiencing wasn't about to be tricked into submission by a warm bath or anything else, so we called back and ann suggested we might meet her at the birthing center just to make sure everything was ok. keep in mind, at this point, scott and i are pretty wary of wasting anyone's time for a false start to labor, but i was pretty sure what i was feeling was much stronger than false labor. so, we met ann and annie (midwife and nurse) at midnight. we got into the forest room (quick note: the midwife center has three separate birth rooms to choose from, a desert room, forest room and ocean room. each themed after the color scheme. each room comes equipped with a four poster bed, full bathroom with whirlpool tub, rocking chairs, etc. as homey as possible). so we ended up in the green room, which turned out to be quite the perfect room, color and size wise. ann checked me out and sure enough, i was already 5 cm dilated! a surprise to all of us. an unexpected but wonderful welcome to the new year. we called stacy, our good friend, to come when she could. she was there to take pictures for us and to be a coach/doula. we couldn't have chosen a better "team" of people to have present at the birth. i opted to start out the evening (morning, really) in the tub. it was quite a soothing place to be whilst experiencing pretty strong contractions every few minutes. the first few hours were relatively constant. contractions here and there, ann asking me to relax as much as possible during them in order to let everything happen naturally, scott rubbing my back and breathing in my ear to keep my breath steady and annie checking the babies heart rate during every other contraction. eventually we moved to the bed to be warmer and more comfortable. around 3:30 or so in the morning, it was time to start pushing. after an hour and fifteen minutes of intense pushing and some tears on my part, mixed with wonderful coaching by scott and stacy and ann and annie, wyatt finally joined us and changed our lives forever. i'm tearing up just writing this. it was the most beautiful, moving and amazing experience.
at 5:02 am on january 2nd, wyatt was born. weighing in at 6 lbs. 13 oz. and measuring 20.5 inches.
and there you have the story of the birth of wyatt siplak peterson!

the first post. post baby.

so...seeing as how this didn't get started until after wyatt was born, i figured i'd catch you all up to date. i was posting pregnancy photos on my facebook page and thought i could post them here for those of you that didn't see the progression. i'm not much one for keeping a blog, so the posts may be short, but i'll try to make them to the point and as full of pictures as possible. so here is a sampling of wyatt as he grew in my belly!!