Welcome Baby Charlie!

Charles Winston Kelker was born at 10:57 a.m. on Friday, February 5, 2010. He was 8 pounds even, and 21” long. That makes him the biggest baby of the three. Everything went as smoothly as can be expected and Charlie and I are both doing well! First, the name:

Charles

• I think everyone knows by now that I have a thing about naming our kids for English kings, so this name met the criteria.


• We’ve always liked the name Charlie, but had planned to use Marley if we ever had a girl, so we never seriously considered using Charlie until we decided that there were officially no baby girls in our future!


• And, as always, there is a family history to the name. It is the middle name of both Craig’s grandpa (Robert Charles Groves) and my stepdad (George Charles Elliott). It is also the name of a great grandpa on my dad’s side (Charles Denby).

Winston

• We always enjoy a good Beatles reference, as well. Winston is John Lennon’s middle name (well, until he changed his middle name to Ono!). And Lennon was born during the Nazi air raids of 1940, so he was named for Winston Churchill. A Nazi reference, an English Prime Minister reference, what more could you hope for? No, no, I do not like Nazis, I hate them. But I have always been very interested in WWII/Holocaust history.


• Tidbit: The other boys have Beatles names too – JAMES is Paul McCartney’s first name, and Will’s middle name is GEORGE. Just seems appropriate since none of these precious little guys would exist if it weren’t for the Beatles!
  

Labor

Starting on Thursday I was having contractions about 5-6 minutes apart all day long. But they never got stronger, and they never got closer. In the afternoon the doctor’s office decided to check me so we could decide what to do. I was 4cm and 90% effaced, so they (and we) thought the most sensible thing to do would be to come in on Friday morning and have my water broken. Otherwise, the labor was probably not going to progress on its own, but the contractions were not going to stop on their own either!

They broke my water at 7am, in hopes that I would progress without needing any Pitocin. No such luck. Started a very low dose of Pitocin at 8:45am, and by 9:30am things were getting much more painful. Sometime after 10am I was at 6cm and thinking I couldn’t handle any more pain, or I might loose my mind. Luckily, I went from 6cm to 10cm in a matter of 25 minutes. 2 rounds of pushing where I thought I would just die before this kid came out of my body, and the rest is history. I managed to forgo the epidural (Yey!), but the pain was of course absolutely terrible (Boo!). They kept telling me that I was progressing really quickly, so I think that is what gave me the strength to hold out on the epidural (oh, and the whole money thing, which is quite a nice motivator).

Charlie is just precious and definitely looks like his brothers. We haven’t decided yet which one he looks like the most, but he fits the Kelker mold through and through. Love it!

Listening to his headphones:

A thumb sucker already

Can't deny he's ours with feet like that!

So sweet...

Right after delivery (forgive my looks):