In which a new Blaschke comes into the world

Orion Elliott Blaschke was born 4:22 p.m. Monday, March 6. He weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and measured 19.5 inches long. Lisa and I went in to the regularly scheduled OB appointment at 9:30, then went across the street to the hospital with relatively mild contractions 7 minutes apart. Since we were a few days past the due date, Lisa's water was broken at 11 a.m. to try and spur things along. The contractions did indeed intensify, coming 2-4 minutes apart. But by 3 p.m. effacement and dilation had only progressed a moderate amount, and the OB started hinting about using pitocin. Which Lisa absolutely did not want, having tangled with that nasty stuff when having Calista. Instead, we hooked up her breast pump for nipple stimulation. That did the trick. The intensity of Lisa's contractions shot off the chart, and by 4 p.m. Lisa was completely dilated and effaced, with urges to push. She gave birth, I feel compelled to point out, without any drugs, epidurals or pain killers of any sort. She's just macho like that.

So, without further ado, I present Orion and his daddy (that latter fellow didn't really do much at all during the festivities, other than cut the cord):



Here Calista and Keela meet their little brother for the first time (he's got Keela's mouth and Calista's eyes):



And here he is flying solo.



You may note the abscence of any photos featuring Lisa. Mommy's doing just fine, and recovering more quickly than she did with either Calista or Keela. But all the pictures I have with her and Orion are breastfeeding ones, so I'm going to wait until we get some pics that don't expose mommy to the whole world.

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