Rex is Here!!!

So all of you know by now that Rex Avery Naylor was born on January 30 at 5:35 p.m. He weighed 7 lbs and 8 oz when he came "down the chute". Here is one of the first pictures our doula took of him with our digital camera:



Like most of us, with the possible exceptions of Keith Richards, Jerry Garcia and Grizzly Adams, he looks much better all cleaned up. So:



For the backstory, Daphne woke up around 4 on Tuesday having some contractions, but went back to bed. She got up at 5 when they were more serious and stayed up from there. I woke up at 7 and she told me that they felt pretty strong. She had some water so she wouldn't dehydrate. At 8 we called our midwife practice (we used midwives rather than an OB). They told us it sounded like early labor and to relax, rest, maybe go for a walk. I went into work to finish up a couple of things and planned to be home by noon for a long labor (because they say the first ones are the long ones).

I called Daphne at 9:30 and again at 10:30. At 10:30 she told me I had to come home. I got home at 11 and started timing contractions. Immediately it was clear that the baby wasn't waiting long. They were one minute long, three minutes apart for the hour I timed them. We called our doula and midwives and they told us to come to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at 1 and Daphne was already in active labor. The birth center at Roosevelt/St. Luke's hospital has a tub in each room, so Daphne got into that and progressed through the hardest part of the first stage of labor - transition. Even this progressed quickly and suddenly Daphne was pushing Rex out. All of the women in the room were supportive. I was kind of like a coat rack, a nice thing to have, but one you don't really notice unless you don't have one to hang your coat on and are left throwing it on the floor.

Anyway..... the rest is history and since then we're doing great, enjoying Rex, and taking lots of pictures, like this:



this:

and this:

So that's the update. We will be in Western Mass St. Patrick's Day weekend for the Holyoke 10k (I'm going to try to run it although I think Daphne wil lose her pregnancy weight before I lose my "sympathy" a/k/a french fry and pizza weight, so we'll see). Hopefully we'll be able to see most of you guys in Western Mass then. Otherwise, we're here in the 'hood. Local folks like Katey and Jessica are welcome pretty much any time and if anyone else wants go come to NYC, give us a call.

That's all, folks...