Welcome Ethan Lee Blommestein

After his first shampoo on day three

Boy does he have good timing! One day before I was supposed to go back to work, my water broke. It's no secret that in the last few weeks, I'd been feeling really tired and ready for baby to be born. Maddy was early and I had gotten it in my head that perhaps this baby would be too. Very dangerous to think like that, as it makes the last few weeks even harder! Lucky for me, Ethan had a different idea. Here is how everything progressed before he was born.

On Wednesday morning, we had an appointment with Janice, one of our midwives. She knew how I was feeling and offered to do a procedure called a 'stretch and sweep' (a natural way to try and induce labour). The thing is, the cervix is supposed to be low and Janice said that it was too high to reach. I was so sad knowing that perhaps an early labour was just a dream. We went home and my mom came to stay for the day and to help out with Maddy. Around 4:45pm, just as my mom was changing Maddy's diaper before getting ready to leave, my water broke! YIPEEEE!! I was so excited that at first I didn't want to believe it. Then it happened again and again and I knew for sure I didn't just pee my pants. :) That evening nothing happened and so we had dinner and tried to go to sleep early.

I didn't sleep at all and around 3:30am I was starting to feel mild contractions. I had a feeling things were getting started (Maddy's contractions started 12 hrs after my water breaking too) so I woke Josh and we walked around and around the living room. By 4:30am the harder contractions were here and we called the midwives and doula by about 5am. Celina, the midwife came over and things for me were still manageable but progressing. Then around 6am I could feel the contractions getting further apart. It's true how they say that a mother worrying about her other children can slow labour down. Maddy woke up at 6:30 but luckily, my sister Joanne was here and she took Maddy out for breakfast before taking her to daycare. It was almost as soon as Maddy was gone, that the labour picked up again. I'm told that things progressed from 4cm to 7cm in 45mins, but I totally don't remember it being that fast. At 9:37am Ethan was born! The timing and way the labour progress was almost identical to the way Maddy's progressed, though I think Ethan would have been faster if things hadn't slowed down when Maddy woke up.

A couple hours after he was born

We feel so lucky about the way everything turned out. All my worrying about timing, what to do with Maddy and going back to work turned out to be ok. We also feel so blessed to have the support team that we had for the birth, Celina, Roxanne (our doula) and Allison (the back up midwife for home births). It was a very nice way for Ethan to come into the world.

Celina checking his stats right after

Ethan, we love so much and we can hardly believe that you are here. We are so thankful that you chose us to be your family and we can't wait for the adventures that lay ahead of us all!

xoxo, Mom, Dad and Maddy