I just realized I hadn’t done a real post about Camden being born. It seems only fair since I did a relatively long post for Kaleb’s birth. I know I did post on Facebook and Twitter, but they seem less archive friendly than the LJ.

Okay so we have to go back in time to February 18, 2010; Jennifer was feeling some contractions so we went to the Anna Jaques Hospital. After observing her contractions for five or so hours she was transferred in to Beth Israel in Boston. I hopped in the car and nearly beat the ambulance there. The contractions while irregular continued randomly through the night and into the next day. She was around 4cm dilated at this point so they weren’t comfortable sending us home and so we were sent down to the ante-partum floor. Friday and Saturday were fine, just a bit of settling into the new room. Kaleb who had been bounced around a couple of times came in to visit on Saturday.

Things changed on Sunday. The morning went well, but then as the day progressed the contractions returned, until we were sent back upstairs to Labor and Delivery. The contractions continued to increase until Jennifer received a dose of medicine to stop contractions, at which point they stopped in their tracks. Once they were stopped for a couple hours we went back downstairs. No change Monday or Tuesday. After spending five days in Boston with Jennifer I actually went back to Merrimac on Tuesday and picked Kaleb up at school, before quickly returning to Boston. However, it became clear that Kaleb was in dire need of one of his parents so after going to work on Wednesday I went home and picked up Kaleb. We spent Wendesday night at home, which was great for him and me.

On Thursday everything started out like normal, I dropped Kaleb off at school and went to work. Jennifer went through the regular set of tests and was doing fine at Beth Israel. However, as the day progressed things started to change and they started monitoring her closely. I stayed at work a little late to see what would happen, plus there was a crazy storm going on outside and didn’t want to go out driving in it. I did end up heading home, but just as I was passing through Lawrence, I got the call to go into Boston because they were moving Jennifer upstairs again. By this time the rain was coming down heavily and the wind was blowing the car all over the highway. I made it into Boston eventually and made it upstairs to see Jennifer around 8:30.

The contractions continued to get stronger and more frequent for the next hour. The doctor’s would come in every fifteen minutes or so to see how quickly she was dilating. At around 9:30 she was stuck at about 7cm, but the contractions continued getting stronger. Finally around 9:50 the doctor’s decided it was time to break her water and get the process started. The whole crew of nurses, doctors and neonatologists came in the room and labor started around 10:00. About four minutes later, Camden was born. He was a healthy baby boy, born at 34 weeks and 2 days. He weighed 5lbs 5 ½ ounces and was 18 inches long. We spent a little time with him before he was sent down to the NICU. In the meantime we just hung out in the room in complete awe of what had just happened. We also got to see the placenta and I even took a picture of the hemorrhage that gave us a big scare back in October.

I stayed with Jennifer until we were able to go downstairs and see Camden in the NICU. Once she was settled in her not post-partum room I drove back home. It was about 1AM when I returned to Merrimac and noticed that the power was off all over the area and also at our house. I quickly looked in the basement and saw about a half foot of water and decided there was nothing I could do so I packed a bag and went to my mom’s house.

I spent most of the next day trying to get a hold of a generator to pump out the basement, but through some miracle I was able to drain it just before it went up over the pilot light. The power didn’t come back on until Saturday night. I got up a couple times on Friday night just to run the generator over in Merrimac, it was exhausting because I had to get up at 11pm and 3AM. It all worked out well in the end though.

Camden stayed at Beth Israel until Sunday afternoon, when he was transferred to the Anna Jaques. He stayed at the AJ until today, when he finally got to come home and meet his big brother.