Theodore Payton

It was a rough Saturday night in Newport, but it all worked out in the end and Ruth and I have a wonderful baby boy.

Theodore Payton was born via Cesarean at 4:41 AM, 5/13/2007. He weighed 5 lbs, 14.5 oz and was 19 inches long. He has short dark hair and thank goodness for him, more than one person has already said he takes after his mother.

Little guy has had a busy day of sleeping, diaper changes and visits from all the nurses in the center. He seems very healthy and so far, easygoing. He's rooming in with us in the hospital and we love having him.

I'll shorten the story somewhat -- Tuesday at an OB appointment they found Ruth had elevated blood pressure; after a couple days of labwork and tests and two days of bedrest, they decided last Thursday that she had pre-eclampsia, and after initially admitting her for observation they decided that with the baby at 37 weeks and Ruth already dilated 2 cm, they would try to induce on Friday.

Friday's induction got nowhere, so they let her sleep and tried again Saturday. They ended up breaking Ruth's water in midafternoon Saturday. By 8:30 she was ready for the epidural (which she highly recommends), then she started pushing at about 12:15am or so. After close to 3.5 hours of heroic pushing, the OB advised us that the kid just wasn't going to be delivered except by Cesarean.

Ruth lost a lot of blood during the surgery but has avoided a transfusion so far. They finally took her off all the medications for the pre-eclampsia this morning, then got her back on her feet and hopefully they have us home this Thursday.

Daddy (for those who are interested) spent a good hour with Theo that first morning while they finished the surgery and returned Ruth to our hospital room. I finally collapsed at 7something in the AM, then spent the day learning more about him and helping out my morphine-happy wife, finding enough time to buy her first Mothers Day card. I even found time for a 2nd nap.

Today is a lot of learning about feeding and getting diapers to fit and not getting peed on when changing them. Ruth feels bad that I have to do it all but given everything we went through, she's very happy with how it has all turned out.