Just over 12 hours ago our small family of two added a little and became a little bigger family of 3. To fully explain how this math occurred allow me to backtrack about 14 hours.

Amelia stayed at work late to tie up some loose ends to make sure that in the event she did go into labor she didn’t leave a huge mess. She had been having very mild contractions throughout the day, but nothing to write home about.

Around 11:15pm her contractions started to get a little closer and a little worse; from what she had been told, this was no reason to go into the hospital, especially since it was her first. Her water had not broken and contractions were still about 5-10 minutes apart. Fast forward 45 minutes and something isn’t quit right, so Zach helps Amelia get things semi-put together and they head out the door. Zach was very calm throughout the whole thing while Amelia was clearly starting to experience more intense contractions.

Zach calmly drove to the hospital, obeying all speed limits and rules of the road. Just goes to show how relaxed of a man he is. Amelia is in the front seat screaming and squirming and he is the calm and collected one.

Once in the parking lot he slows down to stop at a stop sign to which Amelia (not so calmly) tells him he better not stop…he decides to California roll through it. Around the corner he pulls into a parking spot after Amelia said, “No Zach, go up to the front, this baby is coming.” Zach says it will be fine and pulls into the parking spot and says ok lets go! Amelia informs Zach she cannot walk and the baby’s head is out. He doesn’t believe her and comes around to her side of the car to see for himself. Once he feels the head he understands the urgency and runs to grab a wheelchair.

Within what seemed like seconds to Amelia, Zach is back at the car and helping her get into the wheelchair. Within the same action of standing up Amelia feels the rest of her baby come out and catches him with her hands and pants and tries to sit down. In the middle of everything that is going on Zach didn’t lock the wheelchair and as Amelia started to sit down it started to roll away…talk about Amelia’s clumsiness! Luckily Zach was quick and got the chair pushed under Amelia and took off at a dead sprint for the ER.

Amelia heard someone say “Is she having a baby?” Zach replied “Yes!” and Amelia thinks a smart alec comment came out under his breath but really can’t remember. At this point, Amelia pulls up her pants enough to see her baby (at this point she still has no idea if it is a boy or girl) and his face is blue. She goes into crazy mommy mode and starts panicking.

As they round the corner into the ER Amelia sees a receptionist who is on the phone with the nurses from upstairs to have them come down because a mom is in labor. As soon as she sees Amelia her eyes get huge and she says something along the lines of she has already delivered.

What seems like all of the ER personnel rush to Amelia and end up in her room. All Amelia can say is “he is blue, my baby is blue!” They have Amelia get out of the chair and lay on the bed. One person is telling another to cut her pants off, the other is telling them just to take them off. The very ironic thing about the pants is Amelia was accidentally shipped two of theses pairs of pants and took one pair back because in her mind she didn’t see the need for two pairs of the exact same pants.

They give the baby some pass by oxygen and Amelia and Zach hear their baby cry. This was a huge relief and at this point Amelia starts to relax a little. Amelia looks at Zach and he is all smiles, another big relief for Amelia

The doctor is asking Amelia all of these questions and all she really wants to know is if it is a boy or girl. Zach finally gets a peak and says it is a boy. The doctor then asks what the baby’s name is and Amelia pauses for one second and looks at Zach who doesn’t skip a beat and says “William.”

At this point, the nurses from upstairs take William away and focus on Amelia. Everything is fine and they get Amelia situated and wheel her upstairs where they wait for Dr. Laqua to arrive to deliver the placenta. While waiting, the nurses ask Amelia and Zach lots of questions and unfortunately don’t have a lot of answers.

Eventually Dr. Jay comes in. Funny side note about Dr. Jay; he and Amelia serve on the state March of Dimes board together and after mentioning this to Dr. Jay he remembers her as “the girl who sends lots of emails.” HA, guess that is one thing Amelia has going for her!

Dr. Jay is able to answer most of their questions and get his questions answered as well. He, along with the nursing staff are amazed that Amelia managed to not only delivery the baby but didn’t drop him. He asks no less than 3 times if Amelia dropped him.

Once the nurses get the questions answered and things taken care of, Amelia and Zach are able to go and visit William for the first time in the NICU. With all of Amelia’s involvement with the March of Dimes she never thought she would be a parent with a child in the NICU.

When Amelia and Zach see William for the first time, he is under a warmer with 4 cords hanging off of him, but he is one good lookin’ little boy.

William Alexander Doll

Amelia tries to breastfeed but without much success so Zach gets to try his hand at the feeding. The nurse gets him set up to finger feed and he does a great job. William is definitely shaping up to be a daddy’s boy.

Amelia and Zach head back to their room and about an hour later William joins them for the night around 3 am. Around 5 they take him to run some tests and give him his first bath before his feeding and they find his blood sugar levels are low. Because he was so little they have to take his temp and his blood sugar before each feeding.

William came back to the room for a short while but was again taken around 7:30 for more tests. It had been a while since they had seen him so Zach and Amelia went in search of their baby. They found him in the nursery where he was under a warmer and getting some blood drawn. A nurse in the hallway asked what their last name was and when she was told Doll she knew the whole story of William’s birth. Guess he is already making a name for himself!