He's finally here!

Miles Tyler entered the world at 11:04 pm on Friday, February the 13th, 2009 at 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 21 inches long. We feel so blessed to have welcomed him into our life and thankful he truly makes us a family (debatable if you count Duermo and Squirt as Miles older brothers). Here's the story. Wednesday morning we woke up at 5:00am counting contractions as we'd done almost every night this week. Nicole had a feeling that something was different and that maybe Wednesday could be the day. We went in that afternoon at 4pm to the birthing center because Nicole had some bleeding which ended up being whats known as bloody show - this is a sign of labor. We were both very surprised to learn that she was dialated to a 4. (We almost didn't go in to the appointment because Nicole was feeling alright that afternoon.) We went out for chinese, of course:) and then went for a walk in the park for a few minutes and headed back to the birthing center. Her midwife checked her and we were admitted that evening. She continued to progress, or so we thought.. Many of you recieved a text message that night letting you know that she was in labor, which was true - it just ended up being a different kind of labor than we'd expected. She was up on her feet and smiling and laughing all throughout the night, and only got 15 minutes of sleep. Her midwife checked on her in the morning and her cervix seemed to be still dialating slowly, it was just really far back. So she was hardly progressing at all. They sent us home to Galveston Thursday afternoon to get some rest (which is an hour & a half drive!) Of course on the way home she started having stronger and more frequent contractions. We got home and slept for about an hour and then Nicole's parents arrived. The four of us packed our stuff and went back up to the birthing center, at this time her contractions were a steady 2 minutes apart. Her midwife checked her and nothing had changed, her cervix was still posterior. She was in what they call padromal labor, and actually had been since the day before. So we went and got a hotel room since she was dialated to a 6 and we did not want to be an hour and a half away from the center. Nicole grew increasingly miserable as her contractions had picked up again evening and we could tell something had changed. We went back to the birthing center and finally her cervix was where it should've been. We were admitted back into the birthing center and had more of a restful night than the one before. Friday morning her contractions were still steady and intesifying, but her water had not broken yet. They ended up breaking her water at 3:30pm and she started completely pushing shortly thereafter. She pushed for a little over 6 hours straight and his head was showing, she just couldn't get him to the crowning stage. no matter how hard she pushed. Finally the midwives decided that everything they could possibly do had been done and we were transferred to a local hospital. The doctor ended up attaching a vaccuum to his little head that was just peeking out and Nicole gave about 3 good pushes and FINALLY Miles made his debut! He is beautiful and perfect and I just can't describe how it really does change you in an instant. Our apologies for not keeping you better informed, it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride there for a while and we weren't really sure what was going on ourselves. Thanks to all of you who've been checking in on us and for all the prayers you've prayed over the last couple of days. We hope to post some pictures here soon so you can see the amazing little guy.