Introducing James Warren Julien

Better late than never! We are introducing James Warren Julien. He was born exactly 3 months ago on Saturday, October 30th, 2010. I finished teaching on Friday, October 29th and officially went on mat leave that Saturday. We had a busy day; a baby shower in the morning, fall yard cleaning all afternoon, and a bonfire in the evening. Stef and I finally sat down to relax at 7:45 that evening and turned on the Gopher game.

15 minutes late, my water broke. Man, what a feeling! I felt a really strong jab, his foot or something, and it started gushing. My parents got there 4 minutes later. My dad said my mom must have broken multiple traffic violations to get there so quickly. We jumped in the car (I slowly waddled, as I was panicking that my water kept gushing - when they mean break, it's literally a flood) and headed to the hospital. On the way, we called the nurses line. They said for us to go back home, take a nice long bath and call later. Not happening!

By the time we reached the hospital at 8:45, my contractions were around 4 minutes apart. After they did the initial check-in, my contractions were down to 3 minutes apart. The immediately started me on an IV (I had to have that before they would administer the epidural). Contractions were a nightmare. God must have known I could only handle them for 1 hour (I know, a big wimp) and at 9:45, the epidural was in and starting to take affect. 20 minutes later, I was ready to push. Just like with Addie, 3 pushes later, James came into this world!

Again, just like with Addie, we didn't have a name until the morning. We had been 99% sure he was going to be a boy, and hadn't really discussed girl names. Stefan feel in love with the name James about 2 months before he was born. James is a family name and Warren is his dad's name! He has a quiet demeanor and LOVES to eat. Addie was in love instantly. She wanted to hold, kiss, cuddle, you name it. When she was finished, she'd push James back into my arms and say, "All done!" Classic.