Woohoo!

Congratulations, Zmayhems! Welcome, Zmaybee!

What a fabulous start to my day! All love and good wishes to you!

Skimmed 24 hours of posts to say:

WELCOME, MATILDA!

Yay, baby of House Zmayhem!

Yay, good news of Sean and S!

Go, Team Brenda with the interview-having!

Yay, cute baby of flea!

Yay Baby!!! So far behind in offering my congrats. My baby pool guess was only off 24 hours and 5 minutes. Ah, well.

Today was a long hard day at the hospital. Mom is having a tough go so far. Found out this morning that her pain med pump wasn't actually giving her any pain meds - explained why she was extra cranky this morning (I had been blaming the prednosone). She was doing better when I left and one of her good friends was inbound for a visit.

I'm staying up here tonight and will head back to home/work tomorrow. Right now I'm curled up with my laptop watching baseball and trying not to fall apart.

So, in conclusion. Yay Baby!!!

Aw, Suzi.

::plumps a pillow, hands over the chocolate and ice cream::

Thanks for updating us on your Mom, Suzi. Hopefully, now that they've got her hooked up to her meds, she'll be able to get some rest and heal.

wait ... I just realized a buffista baby was born on a Tuesday. How perfect.

less lazy kidney and more pain meds to your mom, Suzi.

wait ... I just realized a buffista baby was born on a Tuesday. How perfect.

OMG!!!!

"JZ's in labor...must be Tuesday."

I am weary.

But man is she cute!

For the record, it's Matilda Azalea Smay.

Best way to do this is to go back over Cindy's spoilers.

I wanna know if JZ is having an epi,

She really didn't want one since she hates the feeling of being numb. To the point that she gets her fillings done without novacaine. So the plan was to get her hit of fentynal to get over the rough patches and just push through. That would have worked fine with a simple 12 hour labor.

because she had to have the pitocin, and I want to know if she's okay with any modifications to her birthing plan.

We had to have some serious strategy talks after 14 hours of labor resulting in not much cervix dilation at all. I just went with what I knew, which was that EM's cervix dilated almost completely after her epi. Doctor thought it was a sound plan, and that is, in fact, what worked. JZ did like the fentynal quite a bit, though.

I wanna know if she's having any touch averse moments,

To the contrary, every second I wasn't coaching her through the pushing she was glaring at me and yelling, "Neck!" Meaning, my neck is really fucking tight and you have to massage it between contractions. Which was tricky since it's not like I could stand behind her while she sat in a chair, but had to reach across the bed, lean over and try to massage the back of her neck while she was lying down.

and if so, how Hec's dealing with them.

JZ said I was hardly bossy at all.

I wanna know if she got anything to eat before she went to the hospital, and if they're letting her have ice chips.

Ice chips after the epidural. I did sneak her the Cream of Wheat when the night nurse broadly hinted that she'd look the other way.

I want to know the color of her johnny. I want to know if her parents are coming to the hospital before the birth, or if they'll wait at home.

It was sweet that her parents rushed there when she started labor, but labor is a very intense and intimate time. Part of it was that JZ didn't want her ass flapping around in the breeze in front of her Dad, but moreover, I just wanted to be alone and comfortable with her during the process. So I kicked her parents out (with her approval) about 12:30 on Monday.

I wanna know the time of birth. Down to the second.

9:35 am. I'm not sure about seconds.

I wanna know if Hec cut the cord,

No, but I watched it happen because the Anesthesiologist said, "Look, there's your baby!" and I was sort of obliged to look over the curtain at that point. Where the first thing that lept into my brain was the vision of my wife flayed alive. But Matilda looked very healthy and full of squalls, though completely covered in vernix.

and if he and/or JZ cried.

In the recovery room, when we were telling the nurse about my grandmother, Prudence Azalea.

I wanna know the baby's birth weight to the half ounce,

6 pounds, 5.2 ounces

her height to the half inch,

19 inches exactly. Though a lot of that seemed to be her poor little mashed up and elongated head. (Rather squidlike compared to Emmett's more banana shaped molding.)

and her names-as-appear-on-birth-cert.

As noted, Matilda Azalea Smay.

And who's filling out the cert, for that matter.

Nurse.

And I want to know how Emmett is, and his reaction upon meeting the baby for the first time.

Now that actually turned out to be a pretty good story. I called EM, of course, and she was thrilled for us. Very sweet and excited. I told her that JZ wanted Emmett to come as soon as possible - not wait until the end of the week. She wanted Emmett to feel part of a family with Matilda right away - not have the baby presented to him as if we'd already formed some separate unit. EM mulled it over and decided that it would be best to come right over. She actually pulled Emmett out of school - which was a good choice in retrospect. Made it feel like a holiday and emphasized how eventful it was.

They met me over at my house since I'd finally sneaked out to pick (continued...)