Finally some updates of my sweet boy!

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I finally sat down at the computer for long enough to post some more pictures. These are just from the first week, so I am planning on posting more. I also wanted to write more about the birth, etc. in case it takes me longer than I hope to write it in my journal. At least this way I will have it saved while it is still pretty fresh in my memory.

This is really long, but since it is for my own memory as much as sharing the experience thats how it goes. Read it all if you would like, but it is long.

So here goes. So after my last post after my doctor appointment I started to have a realish contractions. They were kind of getting more steady through the evening, but nothing to slow me down. I still didn't feel like it was anything that would be progressing to labor. Anyway, so while I was fixing a late dinner, I thought I felt my water break. They broke my water with Stella so I didn't know what the small break felt like on my own. All they ever say is that it can be a small trickle, which is what I thought I felt. The contractions had kind of started to be more regular, but still far apart so I called the nurse and they said I should go in and get checked. So around 8'o'clock Josh and I left Stella with some friends and we headed in to the hospital. The whole time I didn't feel like I was in labor, so I was feeling silly about going in. Anyway, we got there, they did the triage stuff, then had one of the doctors come in and check me. I hadn't dilated any more than at my doctor's appointment, so they checked the fluid to see if my water had broken. Well, it hadn't broken, so I was one of the silly people that has to get sent home not in real labor. The nurses and doctors were all really nice and said they hoped to see me some time later in the night. Josh and I went home and decided to let Stella stay at our friend's house and have a sleepover with their cute boys. We hoped that I would start to progress into real labor, so we just took it pretty easy, watched a movie and went to bed. We got a pretty good night sleep with Stella gone and I had some contractions all through the night. They got progressively worse toward the morning, until I couldn't sleep anymore. At about 6:30 I decided to get up and shower and immediately the contractions got a lot more intense and close together. Josh and I hurried and showered, got everything ready and headed to the hospital, knowing that this time was definitely for real. We got there at about 7:30, and they took me right in (I was still wearing my wristband from the night before, so they figured it was real this time) a couple of the nurses from the night shift were still there and were excited to see me back. I was dilated to about 5 cm when we got there and having steady contractions, so things looked to be going very well. I had decided that since my labor went pretty quickly with Stella that I didn't want to get an epidural right away. I would hold out and see how things went. The recovery is so much easier without one that I figured it would be worth it if I could do it. Anyway, so things progressed pretty typically, I was dilating about a cm an hour for the first couple of hours. I got a couple of shots of Fentanol(sp) to help take the edge off, and it made it pretty nice. Basically it made me feel all floaty and light headed. Pretty trippy. When Dr. Lowe (my resident) checked me at 7 cm he broke my water to help move things along. After that I realized why I had been so big. I think this little baby was floating in 10 gallons of water! It did seem like with every contraction there was a ton of fluid. It was pretty crazy. At this point my contractions were still bearable and I was feeling pretty good. The contractions did kind of slow down so Dr. Lowe said to go ahead and add some Pitocin to speed things up. Just after he left and as the nurse started to get it all ready I had a pretty gnarly contraction. They decided to wait and we realized it wasn't necessary. For about the next hour, I had some major contractions and things got really intense. After a few of these I wanted something for the pain, but it was too late to do any more Fentanol (it makes the baby depressed too close to delivery) and there wasn't enough labor left for an epidural. After some very painful contractions and some hyperventilating on my part (literally, I even got to have an oxygen mask to help me. There is a reason to practice breathing before hand) things were going very quickly. My main doctor finally arrived (they had a hard time getting a hold of him that morning) and my contractions were really difficult. I was really struggling through the last couple, and I don't think I could have done any more had it gone on much longer. I was finally ready to get pushing and it was a whirlwind of activity. It was pretty crazy to see how quickly the doctors and nurses got their delivery gear on and got the bed and everything ready. It felt like they took forever to me, because by the time they were ready I was dying to push. They planned on giving me a shot of pain meds before I pushed, but after some extremely painful pushing (yes there was some definite yelling, it was just like how they show it on movies and TV shows) he was out. I pushed through three contractions, then it was all over. Hallelujah! I have to say that I wouldn't recommend doing all of it without any pain relief, but it was awesome to be able to do it and to know that I can. And getting to have my sweet baby put right into my arms made it all worth it. He really is a very sweet baby and already I don't know what I would do without him in our lives.