Erin and I are both pleased to introduce everyone to Oliver James Robert Coleman. He was born at 11:41am on Friday, October 22nd and weighed in at 6lbs 10.5oz. He was about 53cm long and seems to have inherited his mother's red hair and her dimpled chin.

Erin's labour went pretty well - her labour started around 5am (we were scheduled for an induction at 7:30am - it's gotta be my kid because he waited until the last possible moment to start trying to come into the world on his own). Erin advanced through the stages pretty quick and was doing well, but Oliver seemed to be a little stressed during contractions. His heart rate would drop quite severely and occasionally take a little longer to recover than the midwives & doctor would have liked. Eventually his heart rate was down no matter what position we got Erin into and the doctor got very interested in getting him out as fast as possible.

Erin started pushing around 11:30am, and with the help of some forceps, Oliver was dragged kicking and screaming into the world at 11:41am. Up until that point I was pretty sure Erin was in the running for "Wombs Weekly's" Most Hospitable Environment award, as Oliver seemed to have no interest in coming out. I'm pretty sure her checkout policy of having guests dragged out by their heads will lose her a few points and probably cost her the win. It turns out the distress was caused by the cord wrapped around his neck, not once but three times! He must have been having a great time in there until labour started.

Oliver expressed his displeasure at his rather rough entrance to the world immediately by not just peeing on the nurses but going the extra step to save a little extra so he could get them a second time once they'd cleaned up the first round. His APGARs were good, he was assessed to be a 7 at 1 minute but bounced up to a 9 at 5 minutes.

He's been feeding well and has been pretty even tempered so far, but I'm sure that little honeymoon will end soon.

The labour was easily one of the more terrifying experiences of my life but our midwives were a great support team throughout. Through a mix of bad timing and Oliver's decision to hang out a couple extra weeks neither of our midwives who'd we'd seen for the bulk of the pregnancy were going to be available. Rebecca, our primary had been up to 2am, delivering her fourth baby in three days and our backup midwife was on a scheduled off-call week. Fortunately Rebecca had introduced us to our new backup midwife on Thursday so the person showing up at our door wasn't a complete stranger. We totaled it up and between the Toronto and Burlington clinics we've had no fewer than 9 midwives involved in this pregnancy, we're pretty sure that's a record of some kind.

Of course the birth plan (hereafter referred to the "Why did we even bother making this?" document) went out the window about an hour after Erin went into labour - But then again the likelyhood of someone writing out what went down yesterday morning as their birth plan is highly unlikely. Erin was a real trooper throughout and stayed calm and as relaxed as possible. It was kind of cute watching her try to stick to her goal of going natural the whole time while simultaneously trying to latch on to any medical reason that would necessitate an Epidural. In the end the doctor wanted one just so it was there in case anything really serious started to happen - had he not insisted I'm positive Erin would have gone it on her own.

The aftermath was pure joy as we watched our new son getting cleaned up and examined by the mob of people that had gathered. We were in just about the smallest birthing room they probably could have made - on top of our two midwives we had two doctors, a few nurses, and the anesthetist in the room - I'm pretty sure Oliver put us over the fire limit when he was born. On top of the chaos of all the people it had been a crazy night in the Maternity Ward (5 babies born that day by the time we had Oliver) so nothing was ready - they were out of all their kits and such so everyone was scrambling to get the right pieces in the right places before Oliver made his hasty appearance.

All in all though I think we got off pretty lucky, the real active labour was only a little over 6 hours long and Erin actually got less cranky as labour progressed so I pretty much avoided physical injury & insults throughout.

Well - should probably wrap this up and try and grab some shut eye - it feels like we got home 5 minutes ago (in "couple time" that's about 5 hours - baby seems to accelerate the advancement of time substantially).

I'm sure we'll talk to many of you soon - thanks again for all the support and best wishes,

Ryan (and Erin!)

Edit: Pics are up in the gallery now...

Well, one way or another we're having a baby tomorrow. It's been an up and down couple of days. We've basically spent the week trying all the different tips and tricks that anyone has had to offer to try and get labour going. We mixed up a couple of Castor Oil shakes for Erin yesterday morning. I felt a little like Joe Rogan from Fear Factor as I cheered Erin through each of the two "doses". Erin certainly put on a fear factor worthy performance but managed to eventually choke the Strawberry-Banana surprise back. What was described to us as something that would be a horrendous experience actually turned out to have almost no impact at all - good that Erin didn't have to go through any of what was described to us but not so good as it didn't seem to move the labour forward at all either.

Then, late in the evening Erin started getting contractions, nothing regular or overly strong that would indicate true labour had started, but certainly more frequent and a little stronger than they had been up to that point. The contractions pretty much continued right through the night and into this morning. Things picked up a bit after our midwife appointment this morning and since about 1pm Erin's been getting pretty regular contractions spaced a few minutes apart. To try and help things along a bit we managed to get Erin in to see an acupuncturist - at this stage we'll pretty much give anything a go.

So at this point Erin is sleeping soundly next to me thanks to a little Gravol and a warm bath. She still seems to be getting the odd contraction but nothing that's waking her up.

We're due at the hospital for 7:30 tomorrow morning, where we'll meet up with our midwife. They'll start out by breaking Erin's water to see if that gets thing going - if after a few hours nothing has happened we'll move on to the Oxitocin to encourage regular contractions. Based on today's exam and the contractions that Erin's been having today our midwife is hopeful that breaking the water will do the trick - but anything is possible. Either way, baby is coming tomorrow.

It was kind of a funny feeling tonight as we realised this was the last night of just the two of us - The concept of having an appointment to have a baby is equally as strange but we've both agreed to just take everything in stride an only worry about the step after the one we're on. We'll worry about the Oxitocin if breaking the water doesn't seem to be working.

Obviously I'm not going to get a chance to post another update before baby arrives. I'll try and get a pic up in the moblog as soon after as I can but with the no cell phone rule at the hospital that might be easier said than done. Also - it appears the captions are getting cut off so I probably won't be able to get many details in... just a name probably.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes and messages over the past few days - we really appreciate all the support - even if it's just sending us some positive vibes.

Yup, "No, Not Yet" is still the most commonly uttered phrase by Erin and I. Baby seems to be comfortable and with the cooler weather moving in I can't say I blame it for opting to hang out in a nice, warm womb a little longer.

We've got our assorted homeopath and wive's tale stuff to try and coax the baby out naturally. If baby continues to hold out then we've been scheduled to have Erin induced on Friday. So whether it wants to or not, baby is coming soon.

Erin's spirits are still really good - fortunately all the hormones seem to be making her mood better, rather than the usual grumpiness that we've heard overdue women typically get. Needless to say I'm counting myself lucky at this point.

As usual we'll keep everyone posted. Since the midwives come here if Erin goes into labour on her own I may have a chance to get out a "We're going to the hospital" post - but I wouldn't count on it.

Wow. If I don't have to use those three words again for a while after this it won't be long enough. Someone really needs to sell a pack of T-shirts for expectant parents. 3 shirts - one that says "No, Not Yet", and two that say "It's a Boy" or "It's a Girl" with a space to write the name and other pertinent details.

It's funny, you kind of forget just how many people know (with some, the only thing you know about them is that they know you're expecting). Erin laughs everytime I answer the phone lately because it seems the standard "Oh hey, how are doing?" response to someone starting a conversation has been replaced with "No, Not Yet".

It is great though to know that so many people are interested in the arrival of this little one though. We went to our midwife appointment yesterday and they said everything looks fine and normal. Babies can be up to two weeks late without any risk or concerns - so it's still just a waiting game.

If Erin does make it to next week without having the baby we've got our Ultrasound appointment scheduled on Monday to go in and make sure baby is still in good shape and all the different systems that support it are working right. As long as everything checks out as healthy they'll let us continue until the end of the week to see if baby comes out on their own. If nothing happens by the end of the week we'll have to go the induction route - but in the pregnancy timeline at this stage that's a long ways off and the last resort in a long list of things to try.

Erin's doing great and just rolling with whatever happens. Her energy and mood are both good. We're just both wishing baby would make an appearance sooner rather than later.

So in short. "No, Not Yet" :)

I've taken the webcam image off the home page of the site as I don't really have a great place to point it for the time being. Instead I've switched it with a Mobile Blog, or "Moblog" as they're more commonly known. The moblog is basically a website with all of the pics that I've taken on my cellphone cam and uploaded to the site - the most current picture will always display on the home page. Clicking on the image will take you to the online photoalbum and also let you see the larger version of the picture.

More than likely it'll quickly turn into the latest picture of baby - but I'll try to mix it up a bit. I guarantee you though it'll more than likely be the first place a pic of our little one shows up as I can send the pic & details right from the hospital.

Ok, ok, so the reveal was almost two weeks ago... Things got a little busy!

Anyways, the "after" pics are up in the galleries section now. We both love the room - the designer, Neil, got our style down just right and it fits in great with the rest of the house. Now we just need a baby for it!

Overall the process was pretty undisruptive. We had a camera crew here on the Monday to do some "Before" shots as well as do an interview with us and videotape us doing things around the house etc. Then for the next couple of days we had two workmen in the house painting and assembling furniture - we forgot they were even there most of the time. Then on Thursday the designer came back with his assistant and they put the room together. Finally on the Friday the camera crew came back, shot the big surprise reveal and then took some after shots.

Before they showed us the room they wanted to do a last quick interview with us to ask some more questions. One of the questions they wanted to know was why we didn't want to know the gender. Well - Erin launched into her story but partway through the hormones kicked in and she got a little emotional. Through the happy tears she managed to finish her story and when we looked up at the crew we realized Erin had managed to get all of them crying too!

Erin offered to reshoot - but of course they didn't want to give up the television gold of a teary pregnant mother-to-be!

The show is expected to air in the Spring - we'll be sure to post when we get any information on air dates!

Baby Update

No baby yet - but even our midwife seemed to think the chances of Erin going overdue are pretty slim. All the early signs that things are getting ready to go are there so it's really down to a waiting game now.

Needless to say, we expect that our Thanksgiving weekend will be a little unpredictable! I'm going to try and rig it up so I can post a message on here from my cell phone when the baby arrives - of course we'll send out a proper message once we're home and settled in!

If you want to get the message - please send e-mail me at babyupdate@thecolemanfamily.com and I'll make sure you're on the list. We have most of our friend's and family's e-mail addresses but send yours in anyways - just in case we've got the wrong one!