born early Tuesday morning, July 13th 3:15am
7 lbs 8 oz, 19"
So here's the crazy story...
I woke up about 2:30am feeling the first contraction. I got up and spent about 20 minutes in our bathroom partly to make sure labor was actually happening, but also because I felt like I had to go...maybe too much information, but looking back, that was a big clue to what was coming. By 3am I had woken Stu, called my parents to come over to stay with Luke & Eliana, and called my doctor. For the next 10 minutes I worked through lots of pretty wicked contractions waiting for the doctor to call me back & my parents to arrive. The doctor called, said she'd meet me at labor & delivery, and we hung up about 3:10am. Stu came down and asked me if I wanted to change since I was still in my pajamas & I said I didn't think I could. He later said I was pretty unresponsive at this point. We were going to walk out the door to go to the hospital as soon as my parents walked in, but I said I had to go to the bathroom, and Stu followed me to the little bathroom off the kitchen. I sat down on the toilet, and here's what I remember of our exchange:
"Stu! The baby's coming."
"Hurry, let's get in the car."
"No, now. The baby's coming now!"
And sure enough, Stu bent down, saw the baby's head, freaked out for a moment (not really), told me to push, and out came a perfect baby boy--all pink and rosy and screaming. Hearing those wails and seeing the baby's healthy color was amazing and set me at ease. We noticed the cord was twisted around the baby's neck, so we untangled it, and I remember Stu asking, a little frantically, "what do we do now?" I told him to calm down, give me the baby, and call the doctor back. It had only been about 5 minutes since I had talked to her. Stu ran around the house looking for my phone and at this point my parents were knocking at the door and Eliana woke up. Eliana let my parents in the house and of course they were shocked to hear a baby crying, which they knew wasn't Luke!
So now Stu's on the phone with my doctor, apologetic for disturbing her and attempting to get instructions as quickly as possible so she can go back to bed (ha ha!), and he's told my dad to call 911. The doctor asked Stu if he had any string and the best thing he could think of was his shoe laces. So he unlaced his shoes and used the laces to tie tightly around the umbilical chord in two places so he could then cut the cord. 
Shortly there after the ambulance arrived and carted us off to the hospital. We received lots of praise and cheers as we were wheeled through the emergency entrance on our way up to labor and delivery. It was an amazing experience, and we praise God that everything went so well. Stu was the local celebrity during our short stay in the hospital. I'm so proud of him!
