Arrival :)

Our little bundle of joy is here! We are so blessed to have such a beautiful, healthy young man. :)

This lovely profile picture was taken a few hours before he was born.

I went in at noon for a weekly checkup and was dilated to about a 3 and 50% effaced. Fortunately, my mother-in-law had graciously offered to come up for the day to watch the kids and take the girls swimming after my appointment so I could rest. So while they were swimming and older brother was taking a nap, I was enjoying a bowl of cherries when I felt my first obvious contraction. I paid attention for the next 2 hours or so and they kept coming about every 10 minutes apart. I gave hubby a ring to let him know he might want to wrap things up at work and head on home (which takes him another 1.5 hours on average). I wanted to make sure he was home just in case things kept progressing. By the time he arrived, the contractions were about 5 minutes apart, but still quite mild.

Because my previous labor felt similar to start but progressed VERY fast (brother was born less than 20 minutes upon arriving at the hospital), I didn't want to take any chances, so we headed over to the hospital.

I was at a 4 and 80% effaced when we arrived. The doctor asked if we wanted to wait things out and walk around or to break my water and speed things up a bit. Because older brother's birthday was the next day and we kind of wanted them to each have their own special day, we decided to speed things up. The doctor broke my water at a 5 and I was given the epidural.

The entire right side of my body didn't want to participate in the epidural experience, so while my left side couldn't feel much, my right leg was not a bit numb and I could feel all the contractions. At first I thought, "Well at least I get to control half my body, and half the pain isn't so bad." :)

Eventually, as I got close to a 9 and there was no break between contractions, my thoughts weren't as pleasant, and I felt like if I received an epidural this time, then it should be doing its job properly. So I asked them to adjust the epidural and it felt much better after 20 minutes or so. I think the anesthesiologist felt bad for not getting it right the first time and gave me too much pain medication, because soon I felt a bit too numb.

I was getting a little uncomfortable at this point and asked the nurse when the doctor would be coming in to check me, to which she casually replied, "Oh, as soon as he is done with his C-section." So I asked if I could be rotated to my left side for awhile. After I was rotated and the nurse left, my hubby whispered to me that his head was right there because he could see the top of it when they turned me over. :)

As if hearing our thoughts, the nurse came back in and said, "Um. I am going to check you because baby's heart rate seems pretty low." Her expression was priceless when she took a look and she told hubby to quickly reach over and push the call button. Another nurse ran in and looked and ran back out to get the doctor pronto. It was frantic from there. Nurses were running in like crazy preparing everything and the doctor was not far behind. They kept saying, "He is coming, but he seems happy...just take big deep breaths." As the doctor was quickly suiting up, a nurse was watching and said, "Uh, DOCTOR!" He whipped around and ran over just in time to catch the rest of the baby as his entire head had already shown up.

My hubby stated afterward, "You know, it is funny that we made sure to get here in plenty of time this time and it was still rushed and crazy at the end. " :) This baby pretty much delivered himself. :)

The kids were very excited to come see him the next day and oldest daughter stated, "I think he will make a very handsome part of our family."

I think so, too. :)

Please shoot me a comment with your email if you would like to know his name and stats. :) Sorry for the inconvenience. It may be time I went private, so things aren't so complicated.