Surprise Arrival!

My Wednesday post was a bit off.  As of Wednesday morning we had become the proud parents of a little baby boy- announcement below.

Please join us in welcoming Dixon Bennett Weber, born into this world on June 5th at 9:57pm.  He weighed in at 7lbs. 7oz and is 20 inches long. He shares his birthday with the Transit of Venus, despite his June 21 due date and scheduled June 14 delivery.  My dad said that us Reader girls grow those babies quickly.

The Story of His Birth

On Tuesday (June 5) we had our next-to-last OB/GYN appointment at 9 am.  We went in, had the examination and everything looked good.  Dr. O (our OB) said he would go over the specifics of the C-section the following Tuesday before our scheduled June 14th delivery.  He then asked if I had any questions or concerns.  I mentioned that our former Olympic contender-in-training had really slowed down his movements.  His usual daily workout had come down from constant flurries the past week, to just three or four movements a day.  As a cautionary, Dr. O ordered a bio-physical profile (BPP), a simple test on the sonogram to assess how the baby was doing.  The ultrasound machine at our OB's office was on the fritz, so Ryan and I walked a few blocks to another office to have the test performed.  We spent about 45 minutes with a very patient ultrasound tech.  Widget was practicing his breathing just beautifully and had a very strong heartbeat, but in the 45 minutes we were there he didn't move - not even a finger.  Because of his reluctance to move he ended up scoring a 4 out of 8 on this test.  We returned to Dr. O's office and although he was sure nothing was "wrong" with the baby- he sent us out to the hospital for monitoring and "possibly" deliver later that day.  It was a pretty big shock to both of us, but we left his office still confident that our well-laid plans would come through.

Once we were admitted, I was hooked up to a monitor for the baby's heartbeat and one to monitor contractions.  Then they put in my IV- which instantly caused my blood pressure to fall and made me feel nauseous.  A minutes later, the baby's heartbeat went into deceleration and we had a bit of a scare.  It was at this point that it was pretty much decided we were going into delivery that evening.  At 9pm we went into surgery and were enjoying our new son a few minutes later.

Status Updates

Dixon is very healthy- he has passed all of his infant tests and even gained back some of his birth weight already.  He has brownish hair with golden tips and his eyes- when he actually opens them- are a dark slate blue that will probably turn to brown.  In the 4 days we spent at the hospital, he was the doll of just about all the nurses, and the envy of many other parents.  He slept for 2+ hours each time, fed like a champ, only cried when we changed his diaper, and had hilariously animated faces - even while sleeping.  We have even been lucky enough to have a few lucid hours when he is fully awake but not hungry - so he just lets you hold him and look into his adorable eyes.  We couldn't be luckier, and didn't do a thing to deserve him.

I am doing just fine- and Ryan is enjoying being a father.  We still have a few things to set up, buy and decide- which is one of the reasons his name has taken so long- but with my mom and dad here to help we are making progress.  

The Name

Dixon's name is both a nice story, a convenient coincidence, and a rabbit pull.  Ryan was early-on interested in names like Jackson, but felt awkward giving his child a name that meant "not my son".  'Ryson' sounded pretty bad, and "ibnShelley" even worse.  We searched for "son of Richard" and this came up, as well as an alternate Teutonic meaning about being brave, or whatever.  It had the added advantage of being easy to spell phonetically (my requirement) and also not very common (a Ryan preference).  Of course, the Mason-Dixon link is hard to ignore, but it turns out neither had anything to do with the Civil War - North or South.  They were English surveyors who mapped the Maryland border in the 1760s.  So now it had a family name reference (being not only the son of Richard Ryan, but actual a Son of Richards - Richard Weber and Richard "Dick" Webber, Ryan's grandpa's), a regional/locality reference (both in the DC-MD area), and... drumroll... a Temporal reference.  You see, among the relatively few recorded observances of the Transit of Venus, which happens about twice every century, the same Jeremiah Dixon, along with his boss Charles Mason, happened to have among the best recorded view of the event in the year 1761.

And Bennett?  We liked it, a lot, and wanted the option to call him something simpler (i.e. "Ben") if the whole "Dixon" thing doesn't work out.

We also reserve the right to lovingly refer to him as "Widget" from time to time - old habits are hard to break.

Our Love & Thanks

Thank you to everyone for your love and support.  We look forward to each of you meeting Dixon over the next few days either in person, on the phone or via skype.  Please be patient with us as we still have a lot to learn, work to do around the house, and not much sleep.  

Much Love- Shelley, Ryan and Dixon Bennett (below practicing his "blue steel" look for the ladies (Zoolander reference, Mom- it's a movie))