Tyler's First Day

Ryan's at home to put Spencer to bed, Eunice is trying to get some rest at the hospital with Tyler... time to share more details (and photos) of our big adventure yesterday:

It started early-- Eunice woke up at 4:30am with contractions and shook Ryan to tell him that the baby was on its way. Now this is exactly when labor started with Spencer, and he was born at 7pm. Things moved a little more quickly this time around...

By 5am, Eunice's contractions were 5 minutes apart. We called the hospital and they said to come in after an hour of contractions 5 minutes apart. So we thought we had some time: Ryan hopped in the shower, Eunice finished putting together her bag. The next contraction was 3 minutes later. Time for a speedy (and painful) ride down 280 to Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City!

We arrived at 6am, and at this point the contractions were coming on strong-- one in the parking lot, one in the elevator with the "door open" button held, one holding on to the door of our room. By the time the nurses could check out Eunice, she was 9cm dilated. The good news was that the baby was almost here... the bad news was that there was no time for the planned epidural (cue Eunice to give Ryan a really nasty look for not getting to the hospital sooner).

The nurses scrambled to find our doctor-- we were lucky that he was sleeping on a sofa down the hall after a long night of delivering babies... otherwise he never would have made it. Dr. Hoff showed up to examin Eunice at 6:30 and told her to start pushing. An extremely painful 20 minutes later, Tyler Lin Nichols was born. Elapsed time: 2 1/2 hours of labor. In his trademark move, Dr. Hoff had Eunice reach down and pull Tyler out herself, which she was very relieved to do.



The statistics: Tyler is 8 pounds 10 oz (very big considering that he's a week early) and 20.5" long. He's in great shape, as is Eunice (now that it's all over!).

The name: Mostly we just love the name Tyler, but it also helped that both Spencer and Tyler are Williams College dorms (where we met) and salt-of-the-earth, hard-working occupational last names (for a Dispenser and a Tiler, respectively). Ryan is much more into these "meanings" than Eunice-- she just loves the names.

The first day (click here for a slideshow): Other than his speedy arrival, Tyler's first day consisted of some bonding time right after birth, a much-needed but much detested bath, some shots, a great start to the breastfeeding, and several explosive demostrations overnight that all other systems were in order.

The emotions: We're relieved that the pregnancy stage is over-- we had mentally prepared for a Cinco de Mayo Baby (it sounded logical: Spencer was also a holiday baby and exactly that early), so even though Tyler was early he certainly felt late in our book. And these first couple of days (delivery aside) have gone smoothly so far-- we're very lucky to have lots of help at home (thanks to Eunice's mom for watching Spencer!), have everything going well health-wise, and have the basics of newborn care slowly coming back to us. On the other hand, we don't think that either one of us has really internalized what life is going to be like with 2 under 2, especially after Eunice's mom takes off and work gets crazy again for Ryan.

So, call it ignorance is bliss for now, but we're just in amazement that Tyler's finally here!