Bringing Baby (almost) Home

The past four days have been a whirlwind of new everythings for Sharon and me, so I'm finally getting a chance to share some of the details. It all started around 7:30 AM on January 3rd when Sharon had the audacity to awaken me from a peaceful slumber to tell me that her water had broken. As exciting as that news was to me, I promptly decided to lay in bed for another thirty minutes while wondering if she was sure about this. After calling our doctor's office and finally waking up a bit more, we followed their instructions to immediately head to the hospital because Sharon had tested positive for GBS, which would present some risk if the baby wasn't born within 24 hours of her water breaking.


So after arriving in the hospital, they gave us a few hours to progress naturally before they put us on labor inducing drugs around 2:00 PM. Even with the ever-increasing dosage - these drugs had little effect on Sharon. However, when the drugs started working around 6:00, they really didn't mess around as her contractions went from barely noticeable to very intense and a few minutes apart. After an hour and a half of this, which we were told wouldn't even be considered active labor, Sharon and I agreed that an epidural was in order. After receiving the epidural, she amazingly went from 3-4 centimeters dilated to fully dilated in about an hour. by 9:00 in the evening we started pushing and the baby arrived at 9:42.


For the sake of Sharon and the weak stomached, I'll spare you some of the more squeamish details of the experience that I found fascinating and stick to the general stuff. When I first saw that our Kurbis was a Caleb, I was a little surprised but excited that we knew for sure what his name would be. We both really liked the name Caleb, and the William is in honor of my grandfather who will always have a special place in my heart. Although the rather quick labor was a blessing for Sharon, her parents and sister were a little disappointed that they didn't make if for the birth, as they arrived three hours late. Even though they just missed the birth, it was impressive that they were able to get plane tickets and travel from Atlanta to Boston in less than 16 hours after hearing Sharon's water broke.


Our time with Caleb in the hospital was rather uneventful from a medical standpoint, as he has had no difficulties besides a slight case of jaundice and some breathing issues. One of the highlights of the hospital stay for him was watching (sleeping through) the Steelers game with his dad, which is the real reason he decided to come two weeks early. However, our idyllic hospital stay was interrupted early Saturday morning by a phone call from Sharon's parents telling us that our apartment (which they were staying in) was flooding. A pipe in the hallway broke in the middle of the night and water poured into our apartment and was up to an inch deep in places.

Thankfully, the flooding didn't destroy any of our property due to a quick response by my in-laws and the providential fact that most of our valuables were up off of the floor. However, our apartment is in sad shape and we won't be able to return to it for at least a week (if at all.) During that time, we will be subletting a nearby apartment and are very thankful to at least have a place to go for the time being. So although we are not really home yet, it is exciting to be together as a family and entering this crazy adventure of parenthood.


Look Mom, no neck!




Family bonding in the hospital


Caleb with our friend Dawn


As you can see, Caleb is really pumped up for the big game

Taking Caleb from the hospital to our (temporary) home