Welcome to the World, Nathan

Nathan is here!

After a *fabulous* surprise baby shower the night before, I woke up on Wednesday and was excited to be feeling tightening in my belly about every 7 minutes starting at around 10am.

June 22nd, on our way to the Hospital...

Having been to see my doctor on Monday, and being told that I was dilated to a 5, I was quite sure this was it. After taking Cambria on a long walk to the park with Amos, and scrubbing the tubs to make sure "contractions" (there's a reason for the quotes) continued, I called the doctor and they said to go to the hospital. Our friend Anne came to play with Cambria until my mom arrived from MD.

After getting all hooked up in Labor Room 1 (the same one Cambria was born in) the nurse started asking me questions. She asked me the pain scale of my contractions and I said umm..0? 1? since they weren't painful at all. So she gave me a funny look and said that if I was having contractions I'd know it. Lovely.

So on top of being not "real" contractions, they were no longer regular. Once I was in the hospital there was one every 30 minutes, maybe. They didn't want to send me home since I was too far dilated, so Amos and I just sat around playing with our electronic toys. It wouldn't have been so bad except I don't enjoy being strapped into bed with monitors. Especially the one that goes over your fingertip and makes your finger sweat. And the hospital-grade blood pressure cuffs that practically amputate your arm every ten minutes.

So there we sit for about four hours twiddling our thumbs. Then I got a call from my doctor offering me option A or option B. Option A was to wait it out until morning and if nothing happened by then to get started on Pitocin. Option B was to start Pitocin now and hope that I would deliver the baby by 10pm, before my doctor was off for the evening. Not a hard decision. I wanted to get moving. So, at about 4:30 I got started on Pitocin still 5cm dialated. Let's get this party started!

It was pretty easy sailing until about 5:15 when the contractions started getting painful. My doctor came at 5:45 and broke my water. I ordered my epidural which seemed like it took for-EV-er since I think it was a resident doing it under careful instruction from the anesthesiologist. He was such a friendly, happy guy and he had Amos laughing, but I was just annoyed. Stop being funny and hurry UP! I remember at one point asking how much longer until I wouldn't feel anything and they said, 'oh, probably about three more contractions.' 'Three?!?' Can't say I was happy about that one, but alas, at 6:24 contractions felt more like little hiccups and less like intense gut-wrenching pain.

The nurse was going to put in a catheter at that point, but once she checked me she said "Whoa, you're a 10. This baby's coming." Yay, finally! She paged the doctor and at 7pm our sweet little man made his entrance into the world!

He was 8lbs and 21 inches. We still didn't know what we were going to name him, so for a while he was "Cubba" "Little Man" or "Brother.

My mom was watching Cambria for us, so after Amos went home for the night she got to come say hi and keep me company. Then the next morning Cambria got to meet her little brother for the first time. She loves him :)

Family Picture!

Waiting to be released

Ready to go home

Home!

Visit from Geepy

With Mimi

We love this little guy!