{alltv} James Van Der Beek Introduces Daughter Olivia

Monday, December 20, 2010

{alltv} James Van Der Beek Introduces Daughter Olivia

When it came time to choose their daughter Olivia's name, James Van Der Beek's wife Kimberly says she left it all up to him. "I gave him full naming power," she laughs. "But she did throw that one in my lap," the actor notes. "We wanted her to come out and then see what her name would be."

The couple welcomed their baby girl on Sept. 25 and the former Dawson's Creek star tells PEOPLE he picked the name because, "she looked like an Olivia." In addition, "there's an olive tree in Israel that's special to us," he explains. Adds Kimberly, "We spent time under it when we first met in Israel, then we went back to this tree when I was pregnant."

When it comes to divvying up duties for their 3-month-old daughter — who has Mom's hair and Dad's eyes — James is an expert swinger but admits his wife is "a much better breastfeeder than I am."

And he's found solace in the "best advice" he's received thus far — that babies don't break as easily as you think. "That helps me to be a lot less nervous," he notes. "I am calmer and then the baby picks up on the energy."

And while Kimberly, a business consultant, describes her pregnancy as "very smooth," she says labor was a different story.

"It was four and a half hours of pushing," she recalls. "I was going for no drugs, but after pushing for two and a half hours, I was like, 'Okay.' I was dilated to nine for a few hours and I wasn't going any further — she switched her position at the last minute and wasn't coming up from under my pelvic bone."

"We were one of those couples who was all about natural birth. We had the right doctor, we had the right doula and the right nurse at the hospital," James, 33, explains. "Kimberly did it as naturally as she could, but at the end of the day we were very glad we were in the hospital."

Finally, their daughter made her debut — with a little help from a vacuum. "The labor was tough," Kimberly, 28, admits, "but you forget about it the second they put her in your arms."