Hello, and sorry for the week long delay in blog posts. I’ve actually written the next 24 posts after this, but our son was
born earlier than expected and we didn’t have them set to go up automatically. Since we consider you our extended family, I wanted to share a little of the story of Westin’s birth. I have alot more to add about the amazing ways God has been working throughout little Westin’s life, but will take some time to get my thoughts together and share them to our monthly newsletter subscribers. If you’re not signed you, you can do so here.
So here’s what happened….Kara is amazing! Her contractions started about 5 minutes or less apart at 4:30am Friday, July 23rd. They weren’t super painful or anything and that was one week early, so we didn’t know if it was false labor or the real deal. We went to the regularly scheduled Ob/Gyn meeting at 9:45am. The Doc and nurses were surprised that she was as far into things as she was because she was acting so cool about it all. She said we could go straight into the hospital or go home for a while. We went home ate and took a walk around the neighborhood, and since we live in Texas…showered again.
We checked into the hospital a little after noon. Kara had already gotten to where contractions were about 2 minutes apart and they stayed that often or less till Westin was born. Again, throughout the laboring, the nurses, mid-wife and Doctors were amazed at how well she was doing. God is good! To illustrate how well she did, we were walking the halls at one point, as the labor progressed, and ran into a good friend of ours who is also an ObGyn. He was surprised to see us and we told him we were having our baby. Based on the way Kara was acting, he asked us, “so are you being induced?” When Kara said, no she is 6cm and laboring, he was shocked that she was walking the halls and handling it all so well!
Of course, things continued to get more intense. I got the impression from the way everyone acted that having contractions less than 2 minutes apart for hours on end is unusual. Again, Kara handled it all amazingly well. She progressed to about 8-9cm, and stopped there for a good while. The water wasn’t breaking and the nurse at first was trying to convince us to manually break it. We decided to wait and let it happen when the Lord would have it. Then (after many more contractions) the water finally broke…I think around 6-6:30. We weren’t checking dilation all that often, but when we next did, she had a lip of the cervix caught and that lasted for a couple hours. Finally the midwife helped Kara work past that and it wasn’t too much longer before she was allowed to start pushing. The hardest part (for those who don’t know) is the transition phase before the pushing begins. She really wanted to push, but our mid-wife Lisa said she wasn’t ready and she just needed to relax while the cervix opened more. When it was finally time, she started pushing at about 8:10pm.
That’s a very slow process. He moves all of about 3 inches over that 1:45, but that made all the difference. At first it was just pushing. Kara was really concerned (the next hardest part) that she wasn’t making progress. It was not a quick process. But finally, Kara pushed the last couple pushes and he came at 9:53pm.
His name is Robert Westin Bridel IV and he’ll go by “Westin”. (so of those of us alive, I go by Wes, my Dad goes by Robert, and my son will go by Westin.) About an hour after he was born, after getting to know his mother for a while, we had him weighed and measured. He weighed 6lbs 15 oz and measured 19.5”.
We’re excited about our new son and new life and are very grateful for the prayers and support many of you have given us! Thanks, wes and kara