Wilkommen...John Murphy Glynn!

Matt and I are so proud to announce to arrival of John Murphy Glynn!!! JP is taking to his little brother VERY well -- wanting to hold him and hug/kiss him all the time! Here are some of the first pictures and the birth story...more to come very soon!

The "Cliffs Notes" Version...
see below for the full birth story if you are interested :-)

Went in for a routine appt. on Thursday at which time I was having contractions so the doctor checked me and noticed I was already 3-4 cm. dilated. The doctor told me I needed to stay until the baby was born. Luckily for both Matt and me, that happened Thursday night at 9:23pm when we welcomed John Murphy Glynn, weighing in at 7 lb. 10 oz. (3470g) and 21.25in (54cm)!



John Murphy's Birth Story:
As I mentioned above, I saw the doctor for a routine appointment late Thursday morning. I had been having contractions all morning, so the doctor decided to check me to see if/how far along I was dilated. The doctor's eyes widened when he realized that I was already 3-4cm and strongly recommended that I stay at the hospital until the baby was born.

After being monitored for 30 minutes where the contractions were consistently 3-4 minutes apart, I called Matt and told him the great (and not-so-great) news...(not-so-great news...it was an absolutely gorgeous day in Germany and he had a really awesome flight planned -- his first flight in 2 weeks since they had cleared his name from the flying schedule in anticipation of Baby Glynn's arrival :-)) Matt ran home quickly to feed the dogs and pick up a few things before meeting me at the hospital around 1:30pm.

Right after Matt and our friend Lindsay whom we had invited to witness the labor (she's interested in becoming a doula) arrived, I laced up my running shoes and headed out the door to go hiking on the trails above the hospital. My mom and Lindsay relaxed on a bench while Matt and I hiked 3-4 miles -- all the while keeping the contractions coming at a steady pace. Once we returned to the hospital, I did a 30-min stair workout (going up and down one stair) and then checked in the labor/delivery area to get monitored/checked again.

Unfortunately, my contractions had nearly stopped after getting back from our hike...and when the midwife checked me, I was still at 3-4cm dilated. At that time, she said she couldn't yet say I was officially in labor. Since Thursday had been the first day they had checked me, no one could say for certain if I had been dilated for 1 day or 1 month...so until I progressed to 4-5cm dilated, they would not officially consider me to be in labor. I had been having contractions in the mornings/early afternoons for a few weeks -- so Matt and I very quickly realized that we could be lucky to have this baby out by next week. This could be the beginning of a long stay at the hospital!

Back track to September when I found out I was pregnant... Seeing that my due date was May 9th, and being that I'm big into numbers, I commented that having the baby on "05/07/09" would be pretty cool. Of course in the weeks leading up to the delivery, had the baby decided to come early, I would not have protested! However, since I was still pregnant on 05/07/09...and close to having the ball get rolling, I became determined that Thursday would be the day. Unfortunately, time wasn't on my side as it was now 3:30pm -- that meant only one thing -- back to the hiking trails for Matt and me! (Matt was SO excited...spending hours hiking the hills above the hospital was exactly what he had been hoping to do today!)

So, we laced up my shoes and headed back to the trails for another 3-4 miles. Once again the contractions came back consistently every 2-3 minutes -- a good sign! So, now that both Matt and I had jello legs...a great start to labor!...we headed back to the hospital in the hope that the contractions would keep up and I had made progress. Sure enough, once getting back to my mom and Lindsay, the contractions became more erratic and less intense. At this point, I needed a break and Matt, my mom and Lindsay were getting hungry (it was now 5:45pm/6:00pm) -- so the three of them headed to an Italian restaurant in Wittlich (10 minutes down the road) and I stayed in my room bouncing up and down on an exercise ball and visiting with my roommate and her husband.

After roughly 90 minutes (it's now 7:30pm) of bouncing and doing large circles on the ball, I decided to walk down the hall to fill up my water bottle. While on my way, I had a pretty intense contraction... I kept walking around the hall and sure enough, another contraction just 3 minutes later. After about 20 minutes, I go back to the room and just then Matt calls -- to which I tell him, I think you need to get back here -- I'm having pretty good contractions!

At 8pm, the three of them return to dinner and we walk down to the labor/delivery area to get monitored and checked. The midwife checks me and says I'm 5-6cm -- yippee! I'm officially in labor! After a few more contractions, the midwife asks if I'd like to get in the bath -- I did (I just didn't want to have the baby in the bath), so she filled it up and I happily jumped in.

After being in the bath for 25-30 minutes, I was starting to feel the urge to push, however, my water still had not broken...so the midwife checked me again and said that I was 8-9cm -- WOW! This was going fast! So, I asked if she would break my water. She said to take my time getting out of the bath and she would break my water once I got to the delivery bed. No problemo!

After a few contractions in the delivery room, I send my friend to ask them to come in to break my water. As she is checking me, she says, you're 10cm...time to break your water! At that time (9:20pm), my mom and Lindsay leave so that Matt and I can have this time together, and sure enough, 3 pushes and less than 5 minutes later, John Murphy Glynn was born! The midwife announced, "Es ist ein Junge!!!" -- It's a boy!!!

Matt and I were thrilled...of course we would have loved either a boy or a girl, but our hearts were really hoping for a little brother for JP. We couldn't be happier... Murphy is such a precious little boy and JP is taking to him very well (maybe a little too well!) We promise to keep posting pictures as we enjoy this time with our boys :-)