baby's here!

On Friday, September 21, I (Danielle) woke up at 5am with contractions (only coming every 10 minutes) and got up at 6am and showered.  I was thinking they were too far apart to amount to anything so I began making breakfast. Kevin left for the office and the kids and I did school.  I went outside with the kids after school and walked several laps around the house, hoping to pick up the contractions if things were indeed happening. Things didn't pick up so I went back inside and drank water and rested for a bit. I talked with Kevin several times throughout the day and at 3pm, he decided to come home.  He wanted to go to Nairobi and wait there.  If things happened in the middle of the night, he'd rather we were there instead of in Narok and having to drive 2.5 hours.  Little did I know that the 10 minutes apart contractions would continue until around 10:30pm.  We went got to the hospital in Nairobi at 7:30pm, thinking we'd be sent the guesthouse for the night, we were surprised to find that I was 5cm dilated.  We spent the next three hours walking, sitting in the tub, sitting on the birthing ball, and walking some more.  Kevin ate dinner while we were "waiting."  At 11:40pm, they called my doctor and she made it to our room at about 11:56pm, just in time to catch Samuel at 11:58pm.

Samuel was immediately put on my chest and was being suctioned by the pediatrician while I rubbed him off and looked to see if we had a boy or a girl.  We also thought he was really small.  I think this was probably because it was our earliest baby, but I think he probably would've been J-boy's size had he be in another two weeks.

We were moved to our recovery room around 2:00am.  Kevin and I were both pretty awake so we watched TV for a bit, got chai, ate some fruit, and waited for the nurse to bring some diapers for Samuel as he was only wrapped in a blanket.  Around 3:45am, I asked for diapers again.  Around 4:30am, we turned off the lights and tried to go to sleep.  Samuel was nursing great from the beginning.   I think we might have gotten about an hour or so of sleep.  The nurse came to bathe Samuel around 6:00am and our day began and we began our day with a new little one!