Jude Richard John

Its official, we're a family of four now. Well, since February 20th, to be exact.

At 10:27 am, at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, our son Jude Richard John was born. He weighed 7lbs 10oz and was 20.5 in. long. He was born at 39 weeks and three days, two weeks later than BellaRose was. He weighed only 5 oz. more than BellaRose did as well. They were the same exact length, 20.5 in., though many people I have discussed this coincidence with believe that all babies are 20.5 in. long at birth. I suggested that their tape measures may only go to 20.5", but that seems illogical.

The whole labor and birth went by fairly quickly, though if you asked Elizabeth, I think she would differ on the definition of "quickly". For the past few weeks she'd been experiencing contractions that were irregular in length and would come at random intervals--many times hours upon hours apart. Furthermore, she fell on the ice on Super Bowl Sunday, so we went in that evening to make sure baby was okay, which he was, but it was found out she was 3 cm. dilated and 80% effaced. At her following neo-natal check-up, the midwife further exclaimed Elizabeth's closeness to having this baby and she was told that she would most certainly not make it to the due date--Feb. 24th-- and could have the baby "any time", which is a reassuring diagnosis to be handed by a medical practitioner. I find that pre-natal care is a lot like meteorology in that they can only be so exact with their estimations or time, severity, when something will occur or what will actually happen. But I digress. As a result of that hullabaloo about going "any time", we were both on high alert for a couple weeks, only to be let down when contractions continued to be irregular. At our 39 week appointment, the midwife said we were ever closer but still not there. They couldn't break our water since we weren't full term, but stated they would if she were still pregnant at 40 weeks. We set up our appointment for the following Thursday, his due day, and planned to likely be induced but alas, Sunday morning rolled around and it appeared Jude had an important function to be at and needed to come out that same day. We were okay with it though.

So, like I said, the actual labor went fast, at least once it kicked in full fledged. At about 5 am, Lizzie started to get regular contractions and by 7 am they kept going and getting closer, about 2-5 mins apart. After finally convincing her this was likely the real deal (she really didn't wanna go in until his head was poking out) we made for the hospital. Of course, we hit nearly every red light in town and got stopped by a train. However, we made it.

She was at about 4 cm. dilated at that point and the midwife said we were gonna have him that day. Naturally, we were hesitant to believe this diagnosis (see meteorology reference above) but played along nicely. The kind midwife, however, did prove to be correct and things began progressing quickly, much quicker than we or the hospital staff presumed it would. By 9am were almost nearing the time to push and Elizabeth was contemplating an epidural but since she progressed so fast it really became a non-option for her so my wife, that ol' girl, experienced the full pangs of natural child birth, even the dread "ring of fire". I have a new found respect for her now. More than she will ever truly appreciate.

Jude came out pretty promptly, with probably about 30-45 mins of pushing. It was hard to imagine what he'd be like. The second kid would help predict, or so I thought, how dominant Elizabeth's genes were since BellaRose is like her doppelganger. We were unsure if he'd be blonde or have brown hair, or none at all like Bella did. His eyes would likely be blue but could be brown and who he'd look like was also up in the air. I was presuming he'd be another carbon copy of Elizabeth--blonde with blue eyes and her distinctive mouth. However, Jude came out with a full head of brown hair, way more than his sister had at birth, though he did look a lot like BellaRose did at birth. People say he looks more like me than she did. I'm still unsure. Regardless, I like the little guy a lot. He's a funny kid and I'm eager to the throw the ball around with him, though I am a bit jealous of all the time he gets to spend with Elizabeth.

The whole name thing was another fiasco. We'd been giving the family a fake name during the pregnancy--Dracula Rambo--and keeping his true name a secret. The bigger secret was that we weren't sure on his name at all and wanted to wait to meet him to decide anything solid. After a few hours, family was hounding us for names so we had to decide. Both of us like the name Jude and that it was rare and cute. I wanted to name a son after my dad and since I'm not sure if we'll have another kid, let along a boy, I thought it best to name him John now. Jude John didn't sound too cool and we didn't want him to be known as "J.J.", so we incorporated Jude's other grandpa's name, Richard. So, if you wanna know, that's how he got his name.

All in all we are very happy with Jude. He's a good baby who only really cries when he's hungry, which seems like all the time. BellaRose likes him too, and he likes her. They sit together on the couch a lot and she likes to play "tickle baby" or "get you baby" a lot. She insists on giving him a kiss before bed too, and when she gets up she asks where "baby" is. We couldn't have asked for a better response from BellaRose. We were anticipating regression behaviors, acting out and jealousy issues but so far she's been very responsive to the idea of a baby brother.

We'll let you know more soon. Hope you enjoyed the update. Thanks too all for the well-wishes, support and congrats! We appreciate it all so very much. Thanks again and toodles!