Conrad Allen Thacker!

Our darling little boy decided to finally arrive, actually, we decided it was time for him to arrive and I was induced last Tuesday, April 10th! I had been having a lot of contractions but they would dwindle into nothing whenever I got my hopes up. I had a doctors appointment on the 9th and my OB said I was dilated to a 3/4 and an induction would be fine; I was able to have it scheduled for the next day.  The next morning (7:30am) we left our children in wonderful hands and drove to the hospital. After the settling process I was able to start the Pitocin (9am). The contractions picked up and started to get regular fast. Around 11:30am (dilated to a 5)  my doctor broke my water and things really started to pick up (in hind-sight I really should have gotten the epidural first). The anesthesiologist was soon at my room and the epidural went in.  Sadly, (much like my labor with Matthew) the epidural didn’t have much affect. For my own sake, I’ll glaze over the rest of the story. All I can say is that it happened really fast (total labor 3 1/2 hours). Conrad was born at 12:21pm and the doctor opted to show us the gender of the baby instead of telling us. He is most definitely a BOY! His heart rate had been dropping right before his birth so he was blue when they placed him on my stomach. Thankfully it did not take him too long to start screaming and pinkin up. They shortly whisked him away when the doctor showed me his umbilical cord. He had what they refer to as a “true” knot. There was a perfect tight knot in his umbilical cord. My OB seemed to make light of it so I just brushed it off as interesting at first. After a while I turned to my nurse and said, “isn’t having a knot in the umbilical cord a really bad thing.” She responded, “now that we see your little boy is really healthy and doing well (they tested his oxygen levels) Yes, it can be very serious.” It is a really rare occurrence with a “true” knot only occurring in 1 out of 2,000 births. We are so grateful he is healthy and no serious complications arose from it.  

I love his square frown  and elf ear.

These pictures all show his strong resemblance to Charlie.

His first bath and he HATED it.

This pictures sums up all the reactions from our kids about their little brother. Matthew is head-over-heels in love with this little guy while Charlie and Lucy are more indifferent. I love his blonde hair! Depending on the light you can see a little red in it so we’ll see what it decides to do.

Our friend Carolyn saved us. She volunteered to be our “on call” babysitter. She happily came to our house at 7:30 in the morning to tend while we went to the hospital. She kept the kids completely entertained with different games and they still talk about her. It was comforting to know our kids were in such great care!

Our “over-baked” bunny getting ready to leave the hospital!

Matthew welcomed me home with this sign he made with Carolyn. Lucy and Charlie getting aquatinted with their new little brother.

We have loved having this little boy in our home. He LOVES to eat and poop so of course he is thriving. My parents flew in the day after we got home from the hospital so it’s been wonderful to have lots of extra hands around to help. Wow, four kids, it’s still a little hard to believe…