Welcome to the World... Josiah Scott Pankewich

I know we have either talked to or emailed/facebooked with most of you, so you know some of the details by now. Josiah Scott Pankewich was brought into the World at 9:55 PM on Tuesday, December 9, 2008. He weighs 7lbs 8oz, and is 19 inches long. He is just perfect. We keep thinking to ourselves..."Is it just because he is our kiddo that he seems so perfect, or does he really look that good, and behave so well???" It is truly amazing. Here's the story the best I can tell it.

Heidi went to the doctor on Tuesday morning for a check-up. Heidi has been pretty swollen for the past couple of weeks, and only getting bigger... Dr. Brunner was a bit worried about preeclampsia, so she told Heidi to go home and rest for the remainder of the day. Her blood pressure was a bit high and some of the other tests came back as warning signs that we needed to keep a close eye on her. Josiah was fine, but we were on alert for sure. Like is typical for her, Heidi went back to work for a short time to talk to her boss and co-worker so that she could let them be ready to take the things that Heidi was working on and run with them... Due to the snow, I went home a bit early from work. I had to run a couple of errands when I got there, so I went back into town. Heidi called me and told me that the nurse wanted her to get a blood pressure monitor so that we could keep an eye on her. Heidi was also so excited that she got to begin a 24 hour urine test starting Wednesday morning.

I got home from my running around and Heidi was on the phone with her boss, going over a few more work things. She hung up the phone at about 5:45 and she was going to get something to eat. We didn't get so far though... Right about 6:00 her water broke. We laid her down in the bed and I called in. They told us to come right in to the hospital, and her contractions started in about 10 minutes. They were about 5 minutes apart from the very beginning. I frantically packed my bag of clothes and gathered the last-minute things that I needed while trying to stay calm and time her contractions... it was a bit crazy. We got into the car and headed right to the hospital. Luckily the highway is right by the house and it wasn't too slick. They did a good job of clearing the highways of the snow and ice, so I was able to driveat about 50-55 mph.

We got to the hospital shortly after 7:00 and they brought us right to the room. Heidi progressed pretty quickly and it was pretty obvious that this was going to be a quick labor. Without going into too many details, she went from 2 cm and 75% effaced to 5 cm and 90% effaced in about 40 minutes. By then, she was having difficulty controlling her breathing. The nurses were great at getting her under control when I couldn't. She was also ready to get the epidural by now. They ordered the epidural, and by the time that she got it, she was probably 7cm, so pretty much past the danger zone of receiving it too early. Our Doctor was called and she made the trek to the hospital after she had just finished her bath and hopped into bed. (poor Dr. Brunner had travelled home which 2.5 hours due to the weather and traffic. Fortunately it only took about 30 minutes for her to get back.) When she got here, Heidi was very alert and relaxed and ready to deliver. She was at 9-10 cm, so the doctor got all robed up and they made the final preparations for Heidi. The doc came over and got Heidi to start pushing... From then it went so fast, and Heidi did very well... She only had to push through four contractions, for about 8 minutes, and beautiful Josiah popped out very healthy and crying like he should at 9:55... What an amazing moment when Dr. Brunner got him out and turned him so that Heidi could see him. I got to cut the cord and they took him to the warmer and cleaned him up. Heidi had a little bit of tearing so the doc had to stitch her up, and by the time she was ready, they brought him over and put him right on her chest. within 10 minutes, she was able to start feeding him a little bit. We got about an hour to ourselves with him, with only a few visits to check both Heidi and Josiah. What a blessing to be able to have this precious time with just the three of us.

We are so grateful for all that has gone on, and how well everything went. We are also grateful for all of your prayers for us. We feel so loved and so fortunate that God has blessed us with such a wonderful, precious baby boy.

I attached a few pics that Heidi's friend Emily got on her camera this morning when she visited. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the cable to download from our camera to the computer, there will be plenty of more pics that we will be able to post when we get home... which if all goes well will be sometime Thursday around lunch. Thank you for your love and prayers for us.