Welcome to the world, Karsten!

Our third son, Karsten

Born at home
October 20, 2014
3:23 a.m.

10 lbs, 6 oz
22.25 inches

After two weeks and a day of prodromal contractions, I awoke to what (finally!) seemed like real labor the early morning of October 19. The midwives came and went throughout the twenty-one hours of labor but left in the evening to get some sleep. In the middle of the night, my water broke as I was trying to grab some rest myself in between contractions. I hopped into the birth pool, and out Karsten came shortly thereafter, caught by his father.

Yes, we once again managed to call the midwife too late! Unplanned unassisted birth is now sort of our thing. I have to say, I kind of dig having the birth be unassisted and then having the midwife come in and sort out the postpartum situation.

As I was saying to Sam, the first time we called the midwives too early. The second time, we called them too late. This time, we split the difference and did both!

This baby is much more like his oldest brother than the peaceful middle child. For one thing, he's a big boy! He's not as big as Mikko, but he looks so similar with his chubby cheeks, full body, squinty eyes, wide nose, and head full of dark hair promising to faux-hawk — just like Mikko-lite. For another, he scorns sleep and prefers to cry most of the time he's awake, perplexing Alrik who cannot for the life of him figure out what's wrong. My milk has come in and he's nursing like a champ, which is helping space out the wake-and-screams since his belly's full now.

Both siblings are fascinated by this little brother. Mikko is over the moon and keeps coming by to poke and yell at Karsten (in joy — it's just his brotherly way). Alrik is a little more circumspect since he doesn't know what to make of his baby sibling's emotiveness, but he thinks Karsten is adorable. The boys slept through the birth, with their aunt on hand to help out. It's probably for the best, because I know I dropped an f-bomb in the birth video!

This labor was really, really challenging (posterior baby, back labor, intensity to the nth power), though I'm glad it remained peaceful, at home, and at our baby's own pace. Hypnobabies kept me mostly calm and helped me limit my swearing to only once or twice…. Pushing him out, though, I kept having the thought, I'm glad this is our last one! Heh heh. It's ok — he's definitely worth it.

Thank you all for your prayers, thoughts, blessings, and good wishes! We felt them all.

When I'm not so sleep deprived and have use of two hands, I'll have to write the full birth story, but for now, here are a few more pictures of this sweetness.

Welcome, little one.

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