Oh, boy! Nicolas Francis Nolan is born

Patrick is obviously in tune with the universe. Long before Jamie was even born, he predicted that I would be surrounded by (ahem) men. I'll spare you his specific creative word selection. Crude as his crystal-ball seeing statement was, it also happens to be true. As of 2:02 am this morning, I am officially outnumbered by Nolan men...three to one.

On Monday, my doc informed me that I was already 3 cm, so I had some notion that the newest Nolan would grace the world with its presence sooner rather than later. Not one to easily learn a lesson, however, when I started feeling pains Tuesday evening first nine minutes...then six minutes...then five minutes apart, I once again questioned whether my labor was truly labor.

I'd been through this once before. I should know what to expect, right? Turns out my instinct that no other normal pain comes like clockwork was correct. The contractions started at 7 pm, and by 9:45 pm P and me were in triage at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

After asking me - almost 6 cm dilated, keep in mind - if I needed an adult tune up on my eye-crossedness childhood surgery - Patrick assumed the role of doting husband, and quickly began to butter up the nurses. Knowledgeable nurses who all informed me that even though I didn't consider the contractions unduly painful, I'd better request my epidural STAT or I would be SOL.

By 11, we were all relaxing to the soothing sounds of Patrick's newly created "baby duo" iPod mix. During my epidural, the anesthesiologist even commented on a particular Snow Patrol song. We were like one big happy, calm and medicated family.

As luck would have it, my doc was on call last night and on hand to welcome our new babe into the world. She was, however, tied up with an emergency C-section, which left me, the "textbook labor" lady lying in wait. Numbed from the waist-down and already feeling the effects of sleep deprivation, I was happy to have a little extra time to fitfully slumber.

An amazingly calm Dr. Wise arrived in the labor and delivery room at 1:45 am. Promptly at 2:02 am, newbie made his great entrance into the world. Shaking and crying, I held my new, slippery, red-faced boy for the first time. 19 hours later, a 7 lbs, 9 oz and 20-1/2 inches Nicolas is peacefully resting his teeny tiny blond head on my slowly deflating belly.

Congratulations to all 20% (three) of you who voted that newbie would be a blond boy, just like his big bro!!