Zane has arrived!

I hope everyone will forgive me for being a little behind on the blog. As most of you already know, our little Zane Curry Williamson arrived on Monday, August 31 (my dad's birthday!) at 1:18pm. He weighed 7 lbs, 2 oz., and he was 19 1/4 in.

I actually got up Saturday morning feeling "weird." It was hard to explain, but I kind of felt like my blood pressure was high. I haven't had any problems with my blood pressure throughout the pregnancy or anything but I was a little nervous about it so we found somewhere to check it and it was just borderline high but nothing to call the doctor about. That continued off and on throughout the day. We were ready to get this baby coming and everybody was pulling for him to come on Dad's birthday, so we did a little walking on Saturday and ate Mexican food. By Saturday evening, I started having some contractions but still pretty far apart and a little inconsistent. I was able to sleep pretty well that night despite the contractions. On Sunday, I continued having contractions and by mid-afternoon they were about 4-6 minutes apart. We decided to go ahead and call the doctor. My doctor was not on call for the weekend :-( , but the doctor that I spoke with said that I could probably wait a little until they were more intense since this was my first baby. We headed up to the hospital about an hour later, but of course the contractions slowed down some once we got there. They ended up sending us home but the nurse said that I was in the early stages of labor and that she would expect me to have him within 24-36 hours. Meanwhile, dad had everyone at church (including Ms. Mozelle, who ranks right up there with Elijah in the prayer area) praying that the baby would come on his birthday- Monday. The prayers apparently worked, because my contractions backed off to every 7-9 minutes for most of the night, but they definitely increased in intensity. I didn't sleep more than 2 hours total Sunday night. By morning, the contractions started coming closer together again and by morning, they were 4-6 minutes apart again but much more intense.

We got to the hospital about 7am. They admitted me for sure this time and the timing was perfect because my doctor was back on call and it was dad's birthday! I got my epidural pretty quick, which was good because I was in a whole lot of pain by that point. After my epidural, I felt great! I was chatting with Tommy's parents and my parents and the other friends and family members that were visiting. I hadn't progressed very much in the first few hours there and the doctor came back in at about 12:30 to check me. With everyone waiting in the hall, the doctor discovered that I was fully progressed and ready to start pushing. Tommy had to pass everyone's purses out the door as we tried to come to grips with the reality that we were about to have a baby. Just about 30 minutes of pushing later, Zane was here.

He has a full head of light brown hair and dark blue eyes for now. Dad was elated that Zane came on his birthday! I don't think he stopped smiling for a few days. Everything has gone very smoothly and both he and I have been very healthy so far. I will do another post soon about his first couple of weeks. We are so proud of our little man!!

I am including a couple of pictures of the day of his birth, but click on this link to view a full album of pictures from his birth up to a few days ago. It is on Facebook but you do not have to be a member to view the album with this link.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025253&id=152601047&l=2f504a34b4

I am limited on what pictures I can include right now because all of the pictures are on Tommy's computer or the flash drive that he left at my parents' house. Here are a few that Tommy emailed me to include today.




Check out the album for more. I will post again soon about his first few weeks.

With love,

Crystal