OH BABY!!! Part I

Holy Moly, it's been a hectic two months. I haven't even had the chance to think about blogging. Why you say? Because we had a BABY!! A beautiful baby boy...who I am absolutely in love with! I know most people already know this because of the FACEBOOK world; however, I wanted to blog about it so that I can always remember the details. You think you'll always remember the details, and then years pass by and things start to slowly fade away...so, here's the birth story... On Sunday, August 19th, I was one day shy of 39 weeks...and rather large!

We went to church with my in-laws and to lunch at Copelands. I was a little anxious because on Monday I had my first day of school, with students. Every year, I get a little nervous to meet all of my kiddos and especially this year because I was SO pregnant. I wanted to meet them, even if it was only for the first day...I wanted to work up until the day I had Weston because why sit around and wait and drive myself crazy! It's like watching paint dry...BORING! Those last few weeks of pregnancy just creep on by and I remember having thoughts, "Is this ever going to happen???" On Sunday, I kept thinking that maybe my water broke or had a slow leak, so I called the nurse on call and she told me that if my water broke, i'd for sure know because it's a LOT of water. She said not to worry and to come in if it was like a faucet. So....I cleaned house, took my shower, straightened my hair, and picked out my close for the first day of school. At 10:00 pm, Hunter and I went to bed. At 12:15 am, I woke up and had to use the restroom (every 2 hours I did this those last few weeks). I remember going to the bathroom and thinking, "what if my water is leaking and I don't know it?" I was rather concerned but got back in bed and said "God, if my water is leaking and i need to go to the hospital, will you please give me a sign?" I am not kidding when I say that minutes later I felt a large gush and immediately ran to the bathroom. This time I KNEW my water had broken. Hunter must've heard me because he was up and I yelled "Hunter, I think it's time!!!" I got out my handy dandy list of last minute things to grab (phone charger, bathroom toiletries, etc...) and we were out the door in 10 minutes. I already had our bags packed and in the car, along with the car seat. I was ready for this moment and it was just as exciting as I'd hoped it would be. At this time, I had absolutely no pain or contractions. We pulled into Baptist before 1:00 am and parked in the parking garage. We walked across the sky bridge over to Labor & Delivery (we knew exactly where to go because we took childbirth class in July!) We were both SO excited and I made Hunter take one last picture of me pregnant, which turned out to be pretty blurry, but oh well!

I walked into the hospital and told them that I think my water broke. They weighed me at 146 lbs and took me over to Triage to have me checked before they would admit me. I started getting worried that maybe I just peed and my water didn't break...but then I knew I had just gone to the bathroom before it happened so it HAD to have broken. Hunter was laughing and hoping that we wouldn't be sent back home. Sure enough, my water had broken!!!! Since I wasn't having any contractions, they admitted me to a room to get my IV and were going to start Pitocin at 7:00 am. Our first nurse was Kelley Passifiume, a girl who graduated from CAC with my sister, Katie. It was so nice to have a nurse I was already familiar with! She was so sweet! We basically just spent the night at the hospital and tried to rest (but I was SO excited that it was pretty difficult to sleep). At 7:00 am, Kelley introduced me to my new nurses because she was going home. There were 2 nurses with me all day and an intern who was there to help/watch. The nurses were Sarah and Lindsey and the intern was Lacey. They were still on the clock during delivery, which was really awesome since they had been with me ALL day long. Luckily, my contractions were not very painful. At 3 cm, they had asked if I wanted some pain meds and i was told at childbirth class if they offer you pain meds, do not decline. So I said, "Sure." They asked if the doctor said ok, would I like to go ahead and get my epidural, and I was like "heck yeah!" So that process began and for me, it was more painful than contractions. He had to do it TWICE because the first time it was too low and I could feel it in the rear! It took awhile, but finally it was in place. The day went on and I was progressing...and STARVING!! I hadn't eaten since 7pm the night before, and not very much then because I wasn't feeling well...so I wanted FOOD, which was not allowed. I enjoyed my ice chips and pretended they were something awesome! I kept talking about the food I would eat as soon as I had that baby! Here I am in the hospital...

Around noon, I could tell the nurses were studying my contractions and kind of talking quietly to each other and I told Hunter that something was up. He asked them what was going on and they said that they were concerned because with each contraction, Weston's heartrate would drop. They didn't like how it was affecting him so they were going to have the doctor come check it out. She came and I was at 5 cm. She had them take me off of Pitocin. She was afraid that without it, I might not make any progress. She was going to give me a little over an hour to see how I do on my own, and if no progress was made, we would have to have a C-Section. I was a little nervous, but decided that I'd get to meet my son sooner if this happened, so we mentally prepared for it...It was time to put on makeup in case we had to go to surgery soon...I didn't want to meet my son for the first time without my "face" on. Plus, I knew tons of pictures would come after I had him...here I am:

The doctor came back a little before 2pm to check for progress and wouldn't ya know I went from a 5 to an 8 in that short time...no C-Section!!!! We were gonna meet this baby soon! The doctor and nurses were so excited!!! And so were we!!! Part II to come soon... Carrie