The Riggall clan welcomes our newest addition, baby Ryder James Riggall! Born on Sunday September 4th at 10:02 am, both he and mommy are doing well.
We started counting contractions at 2 am on Sunday morning and decided to head to the hospital around 4:00. Thankfully, Mary's Aunt Janet was willing to get the middle-of-night phone call and graciously headed to our house to spend the rest of the night and be available when the kids woke up. Thanks, Aunt Janet!
We also gave Jeremy's parents a call in the middle of the night to give them an update on the situation as they were willing to come down and spend a few days with the kids while we were at the hospital. Since they were woken up around 3 am, they couldn't go back to sleep and where almost ready to hit the road when we called around 4 am to let them know we were defintely heading out. They arrived somewhere around 7 am to relieve Aunt Janet.
Now, back to us: we rushed to the hospital around 4 am as Mary was having contractions about every 2.5 minutes. Almost hit a deer on the way there. That was fun. When we arrived they sent us straight up and and got us checked in and situated. It was probably still a few hours until Mary was able to get an epidural, at which time we settled down to snooze the best that we could. Mary was progressing gradually, which was OK as it gave us a chance to rest and re-situate ourselves for the next adventure.
Somewhere around 9 am they gave Mary a little bit of petossin (sp?), which helps make the contractions more forceful. By 9:45, she was pushing and 15 minutes later, baby Ryder joined us! We are both relieved that he is here with us now as we both were anxious to hold him in our arms. Thank the Lord that he is strong and healthy!
Ryder was born at a hefty 9 lbs, 1 oz (how did little Mary do it?) and wasted no time in adding on more pounds: he latched on and started nursing right away, as if he has been doing it his whole life!! Ironically, he has been doing it his whole life. Hmmm.
Anyways, we are now in day 2 and everyone is fine! We head home tomorrow to start our life together as a family of five!
