It's a BOY!

I had been having contractions about every 10-12 minutes since Sunday, but they never got closer together and always slowed down around bedtime. I would wake up every morning a little depressed that they had completely disappeared overnight. At my 38 week appointment I was already 3 cm, but I knew that you could walk around for weeks being 3 cm dilated or you could deliver that day. The doctor told me that she’d be surprised if I made it to my 39 week appointment. Well, I did. At 39 weeks I found that I was 4 cm dilated and about 70% effaced and was told I’d likely go into labor soon.

We left the office and I was a tad disappointed because I felt like I would have made more progress given all of the contractions I had been having. I finally just gave in and tried to take my mind off of the baby coming. After I finished work on Friday I drove over to the mall to walk for a bit. I ended up walking around for about an hour and came back home and promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours. That night I started having contractions again, but again they were only about 10 minutes apart, though pretty painful. Tom and I both ended up falling asleep on the couch and headed up to bed around 11:00 pm. I woke up in pain around 1:15 am and immediately got up to pee since that usually stopped the cramping feeling I had in the middle of the night. By the time I got back in bed and comfortable I was having another contraction. I decided to get up and walk around to see if they’d slow down or stop. The contractions kept coming and coming and were about 6-7 minutes apart, so I called the doctor to see if I should head in to the hospital. Doc called me back and asked how long my last labor was and what my status was at my last appointment and then told me to head over to the hospital. Yay! I went upstairs and told Tom it was time and then called Aunt Peggy to stay with the girls. Then I finished packing our bag and got dressed.

I walked around the house and rocked on my yoga ball while we waited for Aunt Peggy. It was really the only way I could relieve some of the pain from the contractions. I prayed that they stayed 5 minutes apart until we got to the hospital because I knew I wanted an epidural. We hit just about every red light on the way to the hospital. You would think that at 2:30 am the lights would cooperate, but I guess that’s just our luck. We finally got to the hospital and up to Labor and Delivery. I gowned up and was immediately checked and was told I was still 4 cm, but stretchy. The hospital recently upgraded all of their equipment and patient system and everything is computerized. After I called my doctor she went online and entered all of the orders for blood work and everything else I needed. No need for us to wait for her to come in to authorize anything. I told them I wanted an epidural, so the nurse started an IV right away. She blew a vein in my hand on the first stick, something I've never experienced, but good lord it hurt. It’s over 12 hours later and the spot on my hand is still sore and swollen. Another nurse was called in to do the IV and it was perfect, although they both taped the hell out of my arm.

We took guesses on what the baby would be while we waited for the IV to finish – all based on the heart rate. Of course the heart rate was all over the place, but when I wasn't contracting and the baby was resting it stayed around 130-140 BPM. I got checked again and was almost 6 cm dilated when the anesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural. I signed a few papers, answered a few questions, and she went to work. The first attempt at placing the epi wasn't quite successful, so she started over a bit lower and about 10 minutes later I was relaxing and only feeling the pressure of the contractions without all of the pain. The nurse propped me up on one side to better monitor the baby, but after about 20 minutes of being in that position I started to regain all feeling in my left leg. So she had me turn completely on my left side and the anesthesiologist came back in and adjusted the epi. Ahhhhhh. Finally both sides were nice and numb and I managed to catch about an hour or so of sleep. At some point both Tom and I woke up to a woman across the hall screaming in all sorts of pain. I made some comment to the nurse and anesthesiologist about it and they said she didn't make it in time to get her epidural. Sure enough just a few seconds later we heard a baby crying.

Around 7:15 or so I got checked again and was an 8+ so the nurse called the doc to get her to head in. Once the doctor arrived, she checked me and then broke the rest of my water and BAM the baby came all the way down immediately. She left to gown up and came back with the nurse. They were originally going to have me practice push, but the doctor looked and there was the head already crowning, so they called in the troops. I got propped up and pushed two-and-a-half times and then felt the baby slide out. The doctor exclaimed, “It’s a…BOY!” Tom and I were both crying at this point – just so happy to have another beautiful and healthy baby. The doctor and nurses asked what we’d like to name him. “Thomas Samuel, but we’ll be calling him Tommy.”

Our little boy came out so fast he had a bit of a bruise on his head and a little fluid in his lungs. The fluid he coughed up and cried out and the bruise/mark is already fading. He got a nine on both of his APGAR tests and immediately latched on to eat. He’s got a beautiful head of strawberry blonde hair and a handsome little face. We’re trying to decide who he looks more like – Stasa or Lexi. I’ll have to dig up their birth pictures to help us decide.

Thomas Samuel was born at 8:14 am on April 27 and was 8 pounds 2 ounces and 21” long.

We had called Aunt Peggy right before I started pushing to let her know she could come on over with the girls. The girls came bounding in, excited to meet the new baby. We introduced them to their new brother and both hurriedly climbed up in my bed and requested to hold Tommy. Tom took them both over to the sanitizer to clean their hands and then we had each girl take a turn holding the baby. They were not at all happy when their turn was up and chastised Tom for not “taking turns” with them. I was worried that Stasa wouldn't be happy to have a baby brother and that Lexi wouldn't be thrilled about sharing mommy and daddy, but both girls just loved on their brother right away, showing me that I had nothing to be worried about. When it was time for them to leave, Stasa was upset because she thought we wouldn't be able to bring the baby home with us. I assured her that I would bring Tommy home with me and that we were keeping him forever and she seemed relieved and told me that she would miss us very much.

Tom and I both feel so blessed to have three beautiful and healthy children and can’t believe we’re now the parents of a BOY. We’ll definitely have to get used to saying “the kids” instead of “the girls” now.