Baby #3, aka El Guapo, joined our family on July 12th at 9:00 p.m. Brinestone was actually scheduled for an induction the following morning at 5:00, but I guess he decided to jump the gun, which is fine by us. She called me just as I was about to leave work to tell me that she thought she was in labor. Thanks to freeway construction and rush-hour traffic, I got home about 45 minutes later. Then we grabbed our bags and were off to the hospital.

We got Brinestone admitted and checked in, but we weren’t able to get a hold of her doctor for a little while. Turns out he was stuck in traffic too after delivering his second baby of the day up in Provo. (He usually does about eight a month, so this was already a busy day.) Meanwhile Brinestone was in a lot of pain and was already feeling worn out after a very busy (but productive) day. She decided to get an epidural, so they called in a nurse-anesthetist. He had a hard time getting the catheter in—apparently Brinestone has pretty narrow intervertebral spaces, so he kept hitting bone—but finally he got the job done, and she started feeling a lot better.

The doctor discovered that the baby was posterior, but he was able to get him turned pretty easily. Then it was just a few more pushes, and the job was done. The baby gave us a very healthy cry when he came out, even before the nurses had suctioned him. They weighed him and announced that he was 8 pounds, 5 ounces—a pretty healthy size, though considerably smaller than Duplo’s 9 pounds 3 ounces. I was honestly surprised at how quickly and smoothly it all went. We’d been in the hospital about three hours at that point, though Brinestone said her contractions had started about an hour before she called me, so about five hours total.

There was a fair amount of blood that came out with the baby (and some blood that came out before her water even broke), which made the doctor think that Brinestone had had a partial abruption. It must’ve been pretty minor, because it doesn’t seem to have caused a problem for either her or the baby. Thankfully everything went smoothly, and both of them are now at home. In keeping with the tradition of giving the kids net nicknames based on their initials, we’re* dubbing this one El Guapo, for GPO.

And, of course, here are the obligatory pictures.

*Or at least I’m dubbing him that. I’m not sure if Brinestone is entirely on board yet, but too late! I posted first.