The Arrival

Our little one breezed past his due date with comfortable ease, leaving me a little sad and quite tired of being pregnant. So, at my appointment the following Tuesday I signed up for an induction on Wednesday morning at 8am.

Frank and I arrived at the hospital, almost on time, and were sent straight up to Labor and Delivery. It was a little surreal being there since I was not in labor, but knowing that we wouldn't be leaving without our baby on the outside anyway.

Here is the final picture of me before our little one arrived. I'm not sure how I was able to stand upright...

They started me on a saline IV at 8:30, then started the pitocin shortly thereafter. The contractions got stronger and closer together, but as of 10:30 I hadn't made much progress.

I asked for the epidural (part of the plan all along) around 12/12:30 as the contractions were getting too strong and close together for me to catch my breath. The first attempt only took on my right side, but the anesthesiologist came back quickly and redid it, and the second time worked like a charm.

I was then able to take a good nap from about 2-4pm. We dimmed the lights, closed the blinds, and I really got some great rest.

At 4pm I woke up to let the nurse know that while I had never given birth before I was pretty sure the kid was trying to come out. She did a quick check and said, "Yep, I'll call the doctor!"

Thats right, I went from 3-4cm to 10cm in two hours WHILE I SLEPT. sweet!

Dr. Elliott arrived, did a quick check and let me know that I was ready to start pushing. After a couple of practice pushes we were ready, and so was our little one! I pushed hard through three or four contractions and out came Little Man!

I'm not kidding, this was the shortest labor I've ever heard of, we started pushing at 5pm and he was born at 5:11pm.

So, without further ado, here he is!