William's Birth!

My little man is here!!! I have never been so sleep deprived or deliriously happy. He was born at 39 weeks exactly. It took me a while to realize it was true labor. I thought I was just having bad cramps. I spent the morning working reading and writing my 39 weeks post but before I finished it the cramps were getting pretty bad, so I took some tylenol and a warm bath, and when the cramps got too bad in the bath I switched to a shower. The "cramps" were getting bad enough that I was stopping whatever I was doing and focusing on breathing with each one. My husband came home to see me while taking a late lunch between classes. I told him i might be having the real deal but we both agreed to just wait it out till my obgyn appointment at about 4 since they were still 7 minutes apart. When I got to the doctors I explained to the nurses that I was having contractions at then 5 minutes apart and how strong they were, the doctor saw me immediately. I was already dilated to a 4 so he stripped the membranes and sent me to the hospital next door for an hour long observation to make sure it was real labor and continuing. After about 20 minutes of observation they asked me if I wanted the epidural (A definite yes) and got me into my room.

It took 5 tries to get the dang IV in me so I could get the epidural. My bruises from the burst blood vessels are just now finally starting to fade. But oh that glorious epidural!!! So much relief! It was beautiful. As soon as it was working it was time for another cervix check. My water broke during it and Bradley got to see it lol. Some of my husband's family showed up soon after to bring him some dinner and come say hi during the whole waiting to dilate thing. The nurse thought the epidural might be slowing my contractions down so she gave me a low dose of pitocin. I could still feel everything but it wasn't painful, which was awesome. About 30 minutes later I told the nurse I was feeling a lot of pressure, so she checked me again and I had jumped from being dilated at a 4 to a 9 in under an hour! And this kids head was right there ready for pushing! The nurse went to get the doctor. As soon as she returned a few minutes later we started practice pushing, but the baby was so ready to get out we could only even do a couple since we definitely wanted the doctor there. When the doctor arrived we got my mom on video chat, and I kept my mother-in-law and of course my husband in the room.

Doctor Bean is the best, he was great to have delivering little William. Him and my nurses (the same nurses who took care of me on Christmas when I thought I was in labor the first time) kept me super positive. Bradley had the gopro to video the whole thing cause I wanted to see it all. Birth is pretty dang cool. Near the end of pushing Doctor Bean suggested some music be put on, so Bradley put on the Henry Mancini station on Pandora, and the first song to come on was "I've got you under my skin" by Frank Sinatra, which made us all laugh, cause it was such great timing. Very appropriate for the situation. After 40 minutes of pushing baby William was out!! My husband made this great video to commemorate the event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GDcJpA3EyY

Birth was awesome, and honestly easier than pregnancy for me :) I LOVED giving birth. And I really loved meeting my baby with some quality skin-to-skin right after! Love at first sight. I cried, Bradley cried, it was all just beautiful. I slept all of two hours that night because I couldn't stop staring at this beautiful child that had grown inside of me (how did he fit????) I ended up sending him to the nursery for those two hours so Bradley and I would sleep. My hospital stay was filled with amazing nurses helping me, visits from family members, and some surprisingly good hospital food. My experience really couldn't have been much better in any way. I'm so grateful everything went so smoothly.

And here are a ton of pictures taken at the hospital by my sister-in-law AmandaBethPhotography, she is amazing :)