Challenger Pt. – North Slopes

Date: July 22, 2007
Elevation: 14,081′
Rank: 35th
Route: North Slopes, Grade II, Class 2+, 9.2 miles, 5220ft vert.
GPS: N 37° 58.8′ W 105° 36.36′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Rick Esser

Pre-climb: After arriving home from Humboldt at 1am, I woke up at 10am and quickly decided I was well enough to go meet my dad down in Poncha Springs to go climb Challenger and Kit Carson, or at least hike in to Willow Lake. After a huge traffic jam in Colorado Springs I didn’t meet my dad until 3:30pm. I ate a quick bite at Subway and then we were on our way to the city of Crestone. The clouds looked like they were up to something and sure enough, when we arrived at the trailhead hikers who were coming down off the mountain said they got hailed on.

Climb: The “4×4″ road to the Willow Lake trailhead is hardly a 4-wheel drive road. We saw a couple sedans at the trailhead. Since it was so late in the day, my dad and I were deciding if we should camp at the trailhead and hike it all the following day or hike in at least a little ways and summit the next. After getting some information from some hikers we decided that if we could find the campsite along the side of the trail halfway to the lake that’s where we would stop.

This trail doesn’t waste anytime gaining elevation! The switchbacks at the beginning of the hike in are very smooth and enjoyable. The view when you get to the top of the first set of them makes it worth it. There’s this gorgeous meadow below and one can finally see a good portion of the route to the lake.

Our light started fading and we were hoping to find a campsite soon when we finally arrived at camp. We had been hiking for two hours and relieved to have finally found a flat space to pitch a tent…trust us, there aren’t many.

We settled down for bed and quickly arose at 4am for summit day. We were on the trail by headlamp by 4:30am. We had very little problems navigating in the dark until we got to the first river crossing (well, not counting the one at the VERY beginning), we missed the cairn on the other side of the crossing and made a left up a gully. At the top of the gully we realized we probably should have crossed the river and this was DEFINITELY not the route! We downclimbed all the way back to the crossing and by now the sun was starting to rise and we could easily see our mistake. Take the right across the river!

After crossing one begins another huge set of switchbacks up to the area where we though the lake would be. Turns out, after reaching that ledge, you have to still hike a ways back in to get to the lake. There were quite a few downed trees over the trail, but at least the angle of ascent had eased a bit.

By 7:15am we were at the lake filtering water for the rest of our hike. Everybody else was waking up out of their tents and the air was much cooler by the lake. The weather looked good and was actually clearing to blue sky for the first time all weekend so I was excited.

Hiking around the lake we again climbed too high and had to downclimb a little back to where the trial actually crosses above to the waterfall. After crossing the top of the waterfall one can finally see the rest of the route. While things look very close and easy, the steep hike up Challenger is very deceiving!

We decided to hike closer to the snow gully instead of the rock rib further to the climbers right. By 11:00am we were very tired of hiking and had passed 13,000′ in elevation. The weather was holding out but many groups were turning around and headed back down without summiting. We decided to take a long break in the sun and see how we felt. Well, 30 minutes later we were still in a quandary as to what to do. We were so close to the top of Challenger but were also aware that the hardest climbing lay above us.

After some convincing from my dad, I decided to give it a try to see how far I got before I ran out of gas. He soon decided to follow me as he noticed me making headway up the slopes. But soon the grassy slopes turned completely to loose scree and he decided to call it a day. He turned on his radio and I continued on. I don’t mind going up scree as much as I hate coming down. After careful negotiating around some of the ledges, I reached an easier trail as it took me to the summit ridge. I thought I was going to be very close to the top of Challenger. Turns out there’s still a quarter-mile to go! Ugg! Well, I had climbed this far, I decided to continue on.

Along the ridge there is a serious dropoff to the south and I could now see the weather was deteriorating faster than I had previously thought. I reached the summit of Challenger at 1pm and quickly turned around and started making my way back. The clouds were moving in and thankfully somebody tied a red ribbon on where to turn back down the south side of the ridge because it feels unnatural to want to go that direction when you can look alllllll the way down to the waterfall back at Willow Lake. Kit Carson looked so close, and the avenue was free of snow…sigh, if only I had another two hours of time to work with.

As I started to descend the loose scree my dad could radio me and I told him I was on my way just making sure not to do anything stupid. Eventually I reached him but it was evident what the final summit push had done…it had worn me out.

More than anything my feet hurt from the steep angle and I still think my toenails are embedded in my boot from the descent down to the lake. This descent takes a long time coming down due to the loose rock and the angle. Please allow time for this descent.

As we arrived back at the top of the waterfall we filtered some more water for the hike out. I took a quick nap on the rocks but the weather moved in. As we were walking back to the lower side of the lake it started to rain and lighting all around us. At least we were in the cover of the trees. We sat out a little spell of rain under a rock and then decided we could be waiting all evening and needed to get back to our tent, over 2 miles away.

After what seemed like an eternity we made it back across the river crossings and back to our tent where we plopped down and took a nap for a little over an hour. It felt so good to relax and take the weight off my feet. However, light was not on our side and it was now pushing 9pm. We had been moving all day but had to pack up camp and get going.

We began the day in headlamps and so would we end it. As we were hiking out we could see lightning all around us glowing off the clouds in the distance which was pretty cool to watch. More importantly thought we were wanting to make it down before our headlights went dead. My dad’s headlamp went dead at camp so I was the only one left with a working headlamp. Our moods turned a little south as we grumbled our way in the dark back to the car, but were relieved to finally make it at 11pm. Ouch.

The drive home was horrendous as we were both flicking ourselves to stay awake and try and make it back to Denver. There is nothing open late at night until you get to Canyon City. Eventually we made it home around 4:30, 24 hours after starting out day. It was a very long day, the longest I had ever hiked time-wise.

Looking back, if we had an earlier start the first day, we could have made it into the lake which would have made the second day 5 hours less hiking which would have made it possible to reach out and grab Kit. It’s a beautiful hike no doubt, but Challenger’s steepness needs addressed and it reminded me of Columbia’s horrible descent back to Horn Fork Basin. I’m sure someday I’ll be back to get Kit, but at least that time I will know what I’m getting myself into.

Drive: 5.5h
Ascent: 10h 30min
Summit: 5 min
Descent: 7h 30min
Drive: 6h

Humboldt Pk – West Ridge

Date: July 20, 2007
Elevation: 14,064′
Rank: 37th
Route: West Ridge, Grade II, Class 2, 5.8 miles, 3100ft vert.
GPS: N 37° 58.583′ W 105° 33.35′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Jason Staudinger, Fred Good

Pre-climb: This would be Fred’s first 14er and for Jason this would be his second attempt. (Although Jason’s first attempt without massive amounts of snow on the ground!) We pulled together the logistics and were able to adhere to our 3am departure time from Denver. The only problem was our stop at McDonalds in Colorado Springs where the computers were down and they had to manually add up our order. Pretty funny, but it took over 45 minutes to get our food and get out of there!

Climb: We started up the 4×4 South Colony Rd at 7:30am in Fred’s beast of a Jeep. It was definitely a smoother ride than my Blazer and he didn’t have to get out to check the best lines during the harder sections. I need to team up with Fred more often! Before we knew it we were up at the top of the road by 8:30am.

After quick assembling of gear the plan of attack was to hike in with our packs, drop our gear for camp, setup a tent, summit Humboldt, then descend back to our tents and stay the night. The following morning we would hike out. That was the plan anyway.

By 8:45am we were hiking, which was a great starting time. The clouds had been hanging low all day on the drive in, but they hadn’t caused me to worry any because they weren’t building vertically, just spreading out across the sky horizontally. We made great time hiking the 1.5 miles into the lake and we had dropped off our gear and setup our tents within an hour of starting. We continued on the trail as it crossed the stream and made it’s way to the north side of the lake.

As Jason and I thought back to our last hike, we stood in amazement as to how close we were to the real trail. Last time when we were here there was just too much snow to really tell where anything was. It was great to see what we actually did accomplish given our conditions on the previous trip.

The switchbacks up to the saddle of Humboldt were steeper than expected but compared to other steep ascents on different 14ers not that bad. After taking a break for food and sunscreen we marched on to the saddle behind the fast pace set by Jason. After reaching the saddle at around 11:30am we could see the false summit of Humboldt and thought we were close.

The clouds continue to build in closer and darker and the trail that I thought would be more grassy turned out to actually be more rocky. The trekking poles started to get in the way as we were stepping from rock to rock as we now more slowly made our way up Humboldt. Fred took the lead and did a great job finding the path of least resistance.

Just below the false summit where the trail is the steepest and the crux of the route is, Jason called it quits. I didn’t argue with him. It was his decision to make. He just had knee surgery and he did an amazing job getting as far as he did. Knowing that he had to go down and with the weather quickly deteriorating, he didn’t want to pull his body up and over rock ledges and if it started raining forget about it. It wouldn’t be a good scenario. Fred and I continued on.

After reaching the false summit, the true summit wasn’t as far off as I thought it might be. Plus it helps that the angle of the ascent greatly flattens out. A quick scramble up the final summit and Fred had reached his first 14er! Congratulations Fred!

The time was 12:30p and we knew the clouds wouldn’t hold out much longer, so we very quickly signed the summit register, grabbed a bite to eat and hurried back down. After cresting the false summit we could see Jason on the saddle doing battle with a pack of 5 marmots. He claims they were ganging up on him, and we have no doubt they were, but it just looks funny from above.

On the descent the sun broke out through the clouds and I started to overheat. I ran out of water on the switchbacks back down to the lake and broke out in heat hives. I only started getting these after Jason and I’s last hike on Humboldt. Whenever I get my hives I get really cold and really tired. After a quick stop at a stream to soak our feet in the frigid water, we were back at the tent by 3:00p.

I was looking forward to a fun evening where we hung out at camp, ate dinner, told stories, but my hives would say differently. They started to get worse and even after crawling into my sleeping bag I could not get warm. The decision was made to break camp and get me back down to the 2wd trailhead where I had the rest of my medication. Why I didn’t bring it with me I don’t know.

Super Fred ran ahead of Jason and I and pulled his Jeep a little closer up the road and then had the energy to run back up the trail to me to relieve me of my pack. I felt a little ashamed about my condition but realized it is what I would do if I were in Fred’s shoes and I should just let him take my pack instead of making things worse. The bumpy ride down almost made me lose my lunch but I managed to make it down thanks to Fred’s awesome driving.

We stopped in Westcliffe at the pizza joint to get a bite to eat and after eating their cheese bread and pizza I started to feel better. Not to mention my medication was starting to work.

The decision was made for us to drive all the way home that evening even though I originally had plans to meet my dad in Poncha Springs the following day. We pulled back into Denver late, at around 12:30a and it was nice to sleep in a comfy bed.

All in all, Humboldt surprised me in the deceiving distance of the hike from the saddle to the false summit but wasn’t too bad of a climb. It’s a shame that South Colony Rd will be closing at the end of the season because I have many fond memories of it and I hope it won’t cause more people to take chances on routes they aren’t familiar with.

Drive: 4.5h
Ascent: 3h 45min
Summit: 5 min
Descent: 2h 30min
Drive: 4h

Claire Elise Esser’s Baby Story

It was a brisk fall morning, Saturday October 21st when we took the test that changed our lives. Actually, I took the test, and Matt woke up to my reaction… “oh my gosh!!”. We were pregnant. It was 6 am, but it didn’t matter, we were too excited to go back to sleep and we wanted to tell the whole world but we also wanted to confirm the results. We talked about how our lives were going to change, and how we couldn’t wait to see if we would have a boy or a girl. We talked about who to tell first, and how Christmas would seem different this year. We talked and talked… and then realized – we have to wait 9 months?! This is going to take forever. Little did we know that 9 months of pregnancy is actually 40 weeks… do the math. That’s almost 10 months. Almost 10 months until we would meet our little Claire.

I made a doctor’s appointment first thing Monday morning, and scheduled it for Wednesday. I knew that if I was leaving work in the middle of the day, people would wonder why, so I did the next best thing and just called in sick to work. Wednesday I went to the doctor and the first thing she said when she walked in to the exam room was “Congratulations”. You think that the shock of that news would be enough for one day, but next thing I knew nurses were handing me samples of baby formula, coupons, a free diaper bag, prescriptions for prenatal vitamins, appointment cards, and pamphlets on baby development. I was shoved out the door of the office in to the waiting room with all of these materials, and probably a very overwhelmed look on my face. (Note: at my 39 week appointment, I was sitting in the waiting room when I witnessed a lady and her husband in the same manner. Shoved out office door, hands full of baby materials, look of shock… I had to smile to myself and appreciate how long it took for me to get to 39 weeks).

Next appointment was set for the second week of November to have an ultrasound and confirm the baby’s due date.

I went home and let it all soak in. Next thing to do was tell our families. We agreed not to tell our coworkers or other friends, until I was a little further along, but we definitely had to tell our families.

The next day, Thursday October 26th, my mom and Jennifer were coming over for a little early birthday dinner celebration for me. My birthday was Saturday the 29th but they were going to be out of town, so they wanted to stop by with presents. I made some jambalaya and as we sat and ate dinner, Matt waited patiently for me to get up the nerve to tell them our news. I think he even pinched my leg under the table a few times! I was so nervous – I don’t know why! So we finished dinner, and I opened my gifts. Then as I thanked them for my presents, I told them I have a present for them…I am pregnant! I never saw my mom move so fast. She jumped up from the table and ran around to hug us. I think Jennifer was frozen with shock, but my mom was moving back and forth between Matt and I giving us hugs and saying how happy she was. Jenn and Mom were crying, I was crying, Matt probably thought “oh geez!” but we’re girls and we can’t help it. Mom and Jenn left, and the phone rang. It was Matt’s Grandma Scotty from Oklahoma, calling to wish me a happy Birthday. Well, since we had her on the phone, Matt decided to tell her the news and boy was she excited! Her first Great Grandchild! That phone call ended, and since we couldn’t let news spread around Bartlesville, Oklahoma without officially telling Rick and Vicki (Matt’s parents) they were the next to get a phone call. Of course, they were very excited too. That Saturday, Matt and I met my dad and his wife at a restaurant (again – for my birthday) and broke the news to them.

We made a point to take “progress pics” throughout the pregnancy. I wanted to be able to remember my pre-baby body before it wasn’t here anymore!

I left work early on Thursday November 16th to meet Matt at home before we went to Dr. Bartley’s office for our ultrasound. This is where we met Fava, our friendly foreign ultrasound tech who eventually would take all of our ultrasounds. We went in not knowing, and came out with a due date of July 4th! I was 7 weeks and 1 day along.

Time went by slow at first. Thanksgiving came and went. We worked on projects around the new house – finishing the basement, painting the master bedroom and bathroom. Then we went to Arkansas for Mark’s wedding, and I thought to myself – this baby is getting to go a lot of places even before it’s born! Matt’s parents visited for Christmas and we knew that this was going to be the last pre-kid Christmas but we couldn’t stop talking about how cool it was going to be to start playing Santa Claus, and sneaking around on Christmas Eve!

Matt took a huge leap of faith and quit his job the second week of December. We felt like it was time to start our own business full time, and God had been weighing this on our hearts for a while now. January 2nd would be the first day for Matt to run Toid LLC full time and that’s a big leap of faith when you know you only have 6 months before your first baby comes!

Finally after the new year, we couldn’t wait anymore and we started to tell more people. Church friends and coworkers all wished us best of luck, and from 14 weeks on, whenever anyone saw us, they were asking about the baby.

Another ultrasound at 22 weeks showed us a happy, healthy baby and we didn’t find out the sex! We had always talked about waiting, but Matt started to think differently the closer we got to the ultrasound. Fortunately I convinced him that we had waited this long, and we could wait a little longer. Matt video taped the ultrasound, and later, would frequently watch the tape, analyzing the baby’s movements to see if he could tell what it was. Lucky for me – he’s a computer nerd, and not a medical tech, because I don’t think he even knew what was baby-parts and what was mommy-parts during most of the video. Ha! He’s pretty funny though.

Matt’s birthday, Easter… the days were starting to go by faster now. The snow finally melted and spring was in the air! I started going for long walks with Sooner after work in the evenings, and it was hard not to count each and every day until July 4th! We started landscaping our back yard and making lists of projects we wanted finished before baby came. Task #1: get air conditioning. That was a no-brainer with a big preggie at home.

We painted the baby’s room, and started wandering around Target and Babies R US on evenings when we didn’t feel like sitting at home. We talked about baby names, and although we had a boy name picked out, we were finding it more difficult to agree on a girls name.

It was getting harder to wait, and so we decided to take one more peak at “Baby” (that’s what we called it, which was better than “it”.) We scheduled a 3-D ultrasound at 30 weeks. It wasn’t cheap, but we were just dying to see how much Baby had grown since 22 weeks, and we wanted to see that cute little face. We went in for our appointment and the ultrasound tech promised not to scan anything below the waist, since we still wanted to be surprised. One funny thing the tech told us was “your baby is pissed!” She kept telling us that Baby had a frown, and looked mad that we were pushing all around on my stomach to try to take pictures of it. This is funny now, because Claire often sleeps with a frown on her face. Baby moved all around, and put on a good show during the scan (maybe because they told me to drink a Dr. Pepper before I came to get Baby moving) and we took lots of pictures and video of a cute little face and wiggling arms and legs. Baby had big cheeks, and big lips, and liked to put it’s foot up by the mouth.

My baby showers were scheduled – one on June 1st before Baby came, and one to be determined after Baby came so we could get more boy or girl things afterwards. The shower was a blast thanks to fantastic party planning by our good friends the Tracy’s and we realized how blessed we were to have so many generous friends and family! When Matt was unloading the car of presents, he commented that I must have robbed a Babies R Us. We didn’t know if Baby’s room was big enough.

As the final weeks approached, we visited the doctor every Monday morning. Matt always came too, which was good because usually the office was overbooked and a quick check turned in to an hours wait. Sometimes the appointments went so late, we would just go out for lunch (to Chili’s!) afterwards and it felt like the whole day was shot. Fortunately, all of our appointments revealed a healthy happy baby and I was doing just fine except for some swelling in my hands and feet. Of course, it was also June so we didn’t think it was too bad.

June 22nd was to be my last day of work, and I couldn’t have been more excited. It felt like that day would never arrive, and when it did it seemed surreal. I loved the girls I worked with, and it was going to be hard not to see them and talk with them everyday. I was anticipating Baby coming on or around my due date (July 4th) so I was making one last list of things to do on my week off, before Baby came. The week of June 25th I cleaned the house, bought lots of food, mowed and trimmed the yard, planted flowers in my pots, planted my vegetable garden, walked Sooner everyday…and went to the doctor everyday. She wanted to see if we could get things moving since she said she was worried about my swelling, and she also knew we would have a big baby. Matt and I weren’t too worried, but we were both anxious to have our baby in our arms!

Weds. June 27th I was 2cm and about 30% effaced, but no contractions. Doctor said she would call and check in with me later to see if anything was happening. Doctor seemed pretty impatient about having this baby, but I was just fine being pregnant a few more days. I was blessed to have an easy pregnancy – no morning sickness, no heartburn, I could sleep fine, and exercise as much as I wanted. I loved being pregnant, and didn’t want it to end too quick.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long. We went to bed on Weds. and I woke up about 1 am (now Thursday morning) with contractions! I slipped out of bed, but didn’t wake Matt because I couldn’t believe this was happening! I decided to fold the laundry in the dryer, take a shower, and try to go back to sleep to see if these were for real. I did all of that but couldn’t fall back to sleep so Matt woke up and we decided we should head to the hospital. I was also a little concerned because I hadn’t felt the baby moving a lot, but I wasn’t really sure since I knew Baby was running out of room in there. We just didn’t want to take any chances, so we got ready to go.

We arrived at the hospital about 5 am and checked in through the ER. They wouldn’t let me walk upstairs, so I was wheeled in a chair to the Maternity Ward. We entered a room and I was told to pee in a cup and change in to a gown. Our nurse came to ask a million questions, and decide if we should be officially admitted for real labor. She asked if there was any chance my water had broken, and I told her yes – I thought maybe some fluid had been leaking but I wasn’t sure. She did a test, and declared it had in fact broken. Well, Matt and I thought this was it. I was 4 cm and 90 % effaced at station -2. The nurse said my water broke, my contractions were 2 and a half minutes a part (but not hurting too bad) and we were going to have a baby!!! They called my doctor and we got hooked up to the monitors. Then…we waited.

Well, shift change happened at 7 am and new nurse came in to say hi. She checked me again and said there was no progress so she would have to call the doctor. Doctor told her to start me on pitocin, but I was a bad patient and refused the drugs. What was the hurry anyway? I don’t think the nurse liked me very much, and I told her it was okay if she had the doctor call my room, I would talk to her about the pitocin. I told her I didn’t want pitocin, that I would rather walk the halls and let things progress on their own.

So all day Thursday – we walked. We watched tv during the times I was hooked to the monitors (about every 1 hour for 20 minutes) and then we walked the rest of the time. Finally late afternoon rolled around, and Doctor came to the hospital to check me. No change. I said – you know, I don’t think my water really broke. I may have never done this before, but I had done a lot of reading, and I just wasn’t having the symptoms I should have with broken water. So after about 4 other nurses and doctors checked, we decided NO – my water had not broken. We had been in the hospital all day and for nothing.

Our choices were to stay and have my water broken (I was already 4 cm but my contractions had spaced to 10 minutes apart) or we could go home. I said go home, but Matt wanted to stay to have this baby. He was growing just a little impatient. In the end, I won. We went home.

Friday morning Doctor wanted to see us in her office again, and we went for another check. Still 4 cm but a little more effaced, and baby was dropping. She said she would eat her hat if we didn’t have the baby that night. She was sure we would be calling in a few hours to tell her to meet us at the hospital. So Matt and I went to Chili’s for our “last meal” and then went home to watch movies and wait. Well, nothing happened. We walked Sooner around the park 5 times, and then went to bed.

7am on Saturday morning we awoke to Doctor calling us on the house phone. She was surprised she never heard from us last night (we were sleeping… duh!) and she was anxious to hear if I had been having contractions. I hadn’t so she said – get up and go walking and she would call back in an hour. As we started lap 3 around the park, Doctor called our cell phone and said we should take showers, bring all of our stuff, and come to the hospital where she was delivering 2 other babies that day, and she would like to check me to see how I was doing. I told Matt – she’ll never let us leave once we get to the hospital. She’s going to break my water and get this baby out.

I was right. We arrived at the hospital on Saturday June 30th at 10:15 (we told her 9:00a and she even called to see where we were… but we had to shower!) As soon as I was in a gown, on the bed, spread eagle, sure enough she said – still no progress but let’s break your water. Sure enough, water broken at 10:45a and now there was really no going back.

–

Matt here, I will write the rest of the story because for Colleen the story is such a blur…plus she is holding the baby right now!

So, they broke her water and we knew we were committed. The first thing I did as a father to be was…leave to go get food while I knew I still had time! It took me two trips to bring everything in from the car which I moved around to the normal entrance of the hospital. This time we remembered bringing a Friends DVD and started watching many episodes. I also took time to order a dinner from the cafeteria at the hospital which turned out to not be very good.

A few hours passed and our nice nurse kept informing us that not much is changing and that our doctor would like to start Colleen on pitocin. Well, we didn’t want to do that so we continued to wait and walk. Unfortunately, by 6pm, nothing was really progressing and after one last call to the doctor, we had an ultimatum: If we didn’t progress in the next 40 minutes, Colleen would start on a “whiff” of pitocin. Well, Colleen got up and was doing squats, pacing the halls, doing lunges, running up and down flights of stairs, sometimes stepping two or three steps at a time! In the end, when the time came, Colleen was still only 6-7cm and 90% effaced. Time for the painful drug pitocin.

The reason Colleen didn’t want to start pitocin was because Colleen would now be forced to stay in bed and be hooked up to a monitor and she was trying to have a natural birth, with as little intervention as possible. Pitocin causes the contractions to be harder and more painful than normal to force things to come out.

Within a couple hours Colleen’s pain had significantly increased but she was handling it like a champ! She still wasn’t on any pain medication and this is where all the childbirth classes came in handy. Soon Jennifer and Colleen’s mom showed up at the hospital and joined us in the room. It was now 10pm.

I was trying to watch “There’s Something About Mary” on TV, but with the contractions happening so frequently and the nurse kept coming in to check on us, it was hard to watch. Eventually things started to quiet down and Colleen wanted it to be just us in the room. Colleen’s mom and Jennifer went to the waiting room while Colleen dealt with the most painful and long contractions yet. It was getting now about time to start pushing and the nurse got the doctor on the phone.

Colleen started pushing about 2:30am and was moving so fast the nurse almost didn’t have time to get the doctor back on the phone to let her know that she REALLY needs to start heading to the hospital because we were going to have a baby soon! The doctor arrived just in time and was ready to catch the baby just as it came out! At 3:06am Claire was born and at first we didn’t know if it was a boy or girl so I had to look and announce it to the room. Colleen was surprised because she thought we were having a boy. (I knew we were having a girl.)

Immediately they placed Claire on Colleen’s stomach and we enjoyed seeing her for the first time and I was allowed to cut the cord. Claire was so strong and was already lifting her head from Colleen’s chest which is amazing for a newborn! After some initial bonding they took her over to the warming table to run some mandatory tests and get her vitals. Everything checked out perfectly and soon we were reuinited with Claire! I went to go get Colleen’s mom and Jennifer out of the waiting room and I have never seen somebody wake up from sleeping so fast. Colleen’s mom jumped out out of the chair and was walking towards the room before I could even tell her what was going on!

Claire weighed 8lbs and 12oz and was 21inches long. We couldn’t be happier.