Chetan and I are proud to introduce William Derr Kapadia! He was born on Wednesday, August 20th at 9:12 AM. He was 6 pounds 12 ounces and 20.5 inches long. We are so glad he’s finally here.

First of all, we had planned a home birth, and since we just moved into our house in May, I’ve been working to get everything ready and was very proud of myself when all of the sudden, a pipe burst in the only bathroom and we had to replace the entire floor and counter. We were planning on remodeling anyway, we were just going to wait until after the birth! Anyway, we had been staying at my parent’s house until Chetan, my husband, finished, which is hard since he works 6 days a week! Fortunately, my parents are wonderful and it was no problem to have the birth at their house. So, anyway, I went to see Linda (my midwife) on Tuesday afternoon. We were already at 41 weeks and 2 days, so we discussed what would happen if I went past 42 weeks (definitely NOT what we wanted), but everything was looking good so far. I decided to ask her to strip my membranes to try to get things started. I’d been having Braxton-Hicks for weeks and some of them were getting strong, but not regular. I went home and tried to keep myself busy and not think or stress too much about it. We went out to eat at Fuji Japanese with some friends from church then went to their house for a while. They have a two year old who has anxiously been waiting for “baby William” to come so she can play with him. My contractions were getting a little stronger and I was having trouble focusing on our conversation. We went home about 9:30pm and sat with my parents watching TV until about 11:00. I fell asleep about 11:20 thinking that the contractions felt stronger, but not closer together or longer. I woke up very suddenly at 11:40 with a VERY strong contraction. I went to the bathroom and started timing. I didn’t want to wake up Chetan unless I knew it was really labor because he was supposed to work on Wednesday. By 12:30am, I’d had 5 more contractions. They were definitely getting longer and stronger, so I woke Chetan and we went to the living room and turned on the Olympics for a little distraction. He sat with me until 1:30 AM when he called Linda. She headed right over. He texted my 3 younger sisters (all very excited to become aunts) and told them that I was in labor but it would be a while and they should just wait and come over in the morning. They started showing up about a half hour later! Amy (the other midwife) and Carey (the midwife apprentice) got here at some point, but I’m not sure when. I was working very hard through contractions and I was tired since I hadn’t gotten to sleep! At about 6:00 AM, I was laying on the bed and started to feel a little pushy. I felt what I thought was my water breaking and trickling, so Linda came to check (I was 9.5 cm with a cervical lip and bulging bag of waters) and while she was sitting on the foot of the bed, my water did break, but it didn’t trickle… it exploded everywhere! I thought that only happened in the movies! Anyway, she asked me to blow through the contractions (thank you, Mary, for the horsey blow!) and wait for the lip to go away. After a few more contractions, she checked again and it was still there and the baby’s heart rate was starting to decelerate during contractions. She was worried that the cord was being compressed. I tried getting on all fours for a while to help the lip go away and maybe position William so the cord wasn’t so compressed. It helped until I was too exhausted to stay that way so she suggested laying on my left side. She and Amy ended up having to push the lip out of the way so I could push the baby’s head past it. Finally, I was able to push, but I was so tired, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Chetan and my mom were with me supporting me while I pushed. If it wasn’t for them I would have given up. I lost track of time, but at some point, Linda had me get on the floor and squat because we had to get William here fast. He finally got here at 9:12am. He was kind of blue at first, but improved quickly. I had 3 tears, but very little bleeding. Amy said that William had his head cocked sideways instead of straight down which is probably why I had the cervical lip. His head had a little molding on the side, but it didn’t last long. He didn’t want to nurse at first. It took him until about 4 that afternoon before he got a latch. Now he nurses well… like his Daddy, he loves to eat all the time. I can’t believe how much he is already growing! We are having so much fun getting to know each other.

Chetan was the best during the whole thing. I couldn’t have asked for a better coach or husband. He never left my side all night except for one 30 second bathroom break. My sister even offered to sit with me while he took a break, but he wouldn’t leave. I am so proud of him!

Thank you, Mary, for getting us ready and teaching Chetan everything he needed!

Brisa and Chetan