The Story of Lorenzo Robert

 To begin any account of Enzo's birth, I have to say how fortunate we were to have our doula, Dawn. I had decided early on that I wanted to try to give birth as naturally as possible, and I had looked into hiring a doula to coach me through that process. But I got a little discouraged by the cost and decided that I'd just do without. I mentioned this to a friend that we'd met up with at a Christmas party. And a week before Enzo was born, I got a call from her daughter, Dawn, telling me about her services as a doula. I was so excited to meet with her! Bill and I agreed after talking with her that we didn't need any more time to think about it, we wanted her to help us have our baby. So we scheduled our first appointment for the following Thursday.

Too bad Dawn got a call from me on Monday morning when my water broke!

And Bill had already left to go to the gym before work.

And I was in the shower.

I hadn't noticed any contractions yet, so when Bill and Dawn both got to our house around 8am, we started trying to time them as they got stronger. They were already less than 10 minutes apart, but not very strong--although they were gaining intensity.

Pretty soon, contractions were 5 minutes apart and we checked into the hospital around noon.

The nurse said I was dilated to 4 cm.  Next time they checked, I was at 7 cm. And an hour later, I was at 9cm.

After a few hours of really painful contractions, I was ready to get this baby out of me. My doctor said she had to run from her office back up to our delivery room in order to get there in time. I remember hearing her at the time say to the nurses, "Let me catch my breath!" Pushing was awful, but lasted less than 10 minutes.

Our little Lorenzo Robert was born at 3:22 pm.

7 lbs. 1 oz., 20 in.

Just perfect.

Our families were both there and excited to meet the little guy.

And we got to have him home in time for Christmas!