Husband of the Year

Lydia Nicole was born on April 27, 2008 at 4:02PM. She weighed 7lb 15.8oz, and she was 21 inches long.

When it was time to sign up for birthing classes, I decided that I really wanted to try to give birth to Lydia naturally. My mom did it three times, my husband's (Josh) mom did it three times, and I really hate needles. So, we signed up for the natural child birthing classes. I think Josh was hesitant about the natural childbirth idea at first, but he quickly became more confident about it than even me. He would confidently and proudly tell family members and friends, "We're going to do it naturally". The most common response he recieved was a laugh and comments about how the "we" part was a bit ironic, considering he wasn't going to be in any pain. While I appreciated what people were saying, I told Josh that I really loved how he said we were going to do it naturally. I think it made me feel less scared about it because I was continaully reassured through his comments that he was going to be with me through it all.

A week after my due date, I finally went into labor. It makes me smile now to think back on it. I was so focused on just trying to get through it, that it wasn't until I was holding Lydia in my arms and Josh looked at me adoringly and said, "We did it! We did it naturally!" that I realized, "Hey! We did do it!" Josh was so amazing and so supportive, even our labor and delivery nurse commented several times that she thought Josh deserved to be "Husband of the Year", and I completely agree!

Bottom line: Parenting takes teamwork, and for us, it started with the very first contraction.