The Poole Family: Happy Birthday Matt!

February 13th, 2013 ~ 10:02pm
8 lbs and 20 inches

After contracting on and off regularly and irregularly for a week and a half, I was more than ready to have Matt any day. Stephen and I arrived at the hospital as scheduled for my 39 week checkup. I had previously spoken with my doctor about an induction around my 2/18 due date, and we had decided to talk about it at my appointment that day and schedule an induction when he was on call. Knowing we had talked about doing an induction, our bags were packed in the car (just in case) which was a good thing since... he sent us over to Labor & Delivery to have a baby!!! I was checked into my room around 10:30am and was started on Pitocin by noon. I responded well to pitocin with Emily so I had high hopes to respond well with Matt. My progression was slow though and I started to think that Matt was actually going to be born on Valentine's day. My awesome nurse had some tricks to help me progress faster and after she left her shift at 7pm, I was checked and had progressed quite fast from 5cm to 8cm in about 2 hours! Another hour later and I was pushing! Not only did my epidural work this time (Thank you!), but I only pushed for 40 minutes!
Stephen Matthews Poole, III, arrived into this world at 10:02pm, sunny side up and crying. He is the spitting image of his Daddy and I remember saying so the second I saw his beautiful face. He is already following in his sister's footsteps and weighed in exactly at 8lbs and 20 inches. It is hard to believe that both of my babies were the exact same size! When does that EVER happen?? My recovery was so much easier this time around probably for multiple reasons (i.e. working epidural, shorter delivery, running after a 2 year old, etc), and as for the baby-- he is pretty much the complete opposite of his little sister. He eats SO good, his bilirubin (jaundice) levels stayed low enough that he didn't need lights, he already sleeps 4 to 5 hour stretches at night, he only cries when he's hungry/needs changing/gets in his carseat, and he seems to just be a very laid back baby overall. Maybe this is just the newborn stage still, but unless my memory fails me, Emily was sassy from day one! It's a good thing he is easy going since he has Miss Sassy Pants as his big sister! Here are some pictures below from the hospital. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to figure out how to balance our lives as a family of four!