Baby Story

Alright, I finally found some time to share my experience giving birth to our son Joseph. I had a feeling all week that I would be going into labor by the end of the week. I had gone to the Dr. on Tuesday and it seemed like things were progressing smoothly. Then on Thursday, I woke up feeling a little crampy. It was nothing too painful, just uncomfortable. I was pretty cautious of what I ate because I had a feeling I might be going into labor. As the day went on and active labor had yet to hit me, I started to doubt it would happen that night. I decided to go to my women's bible study group from 7-9pm. I was chatting with the ladies and had a great evening. I walked home and when I sat down at 9:15pm, I felt my first strong contraction. It was pretty painful and I told Cory that I thought we should begin timing these contractions. We did time them and found out they were lasting for a minute and were about 3-5 minutes apart. At 10 pm I decided to take a bath to relax my body while cory grabbed some last minute items to put in our bags. Cory pulled out the video camera and documented each moment (the video is hilarious and would be fun to see if you ever want to). At 10:30 pm we left for the hospital, making phone calls along the way to family and friends. We were sent to triage around 11:00pm and they checked to see how far dialated I was. On tuesday I had been 2 cm, and I was 3-4 cm when I got there. They quickly gave me an I.V. and then brought me into a labor and delivery room. By this time my contractions were pretty intense. I was trying to focus on breathing, but they kept trying to get me to pee in a cup. I did not have to go, and I was bent over in pain. Finally they just gave up and let me lay down :). Cory was there to apply pressure to my back to help the pain. I was suprised because not only did my back hurt, but my upper thighs were in pain too. At about 1:3o am I asked for an epidural and they were pretty quick to get that going. I thought that getting one would be painful, but it was not bad at all. Pretty soon my body started to go numb. My right side was not going numb though, so they had to adjust the epidural. Eventually I was feeling great. About 30 minutes after I got the epidural, they checked to see how far dialated I was and they were surprised to see I was 8 cm. Then about 20 minutes later we found out I was fully dialated. By 2:30am I was ready to begin pushing the baby down.

The nurse went to call the doctor on call (unfortunately my doctor was not on call that night). When she came back we had expected her to tell us that he was on his way, but instead she told us that she ran into my Dr. who randomly was there and that he had agreed to stay and deliver our baby! We were thrilled with this news. Dr. Mckernan came in and broke my water. That was a crazy feeling..I could not believe how much water was in there :). Then the nurse had me sit in positions to help the baby's head drop more. We tried pushing for awhile, but I could not get the baby to move (at the time we had no idea how big he was). We took a break and then she came in and said that if we didn't make any progress this time that my Dr. was going to leave. This motivated me more than ever. I got my game face on and Cory was an amazing coach. I pushed as hard as I could for a little under an hour. We got him as far down as we could and then my Dr. came in. He had to use a suction to pull Joey out, but he came out pretty quickly. My Dr. had me reach down and grab Joseph as they pulled him out. I pulled him directly onto my chest as they cleaned him off. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced in my life. I could not believe our son was finally in our arms. Joseph was born at 5:12am on Friday, August 28th. I was in active labor for a total of 8 hours. It was a very quick delivery and we were pleased. Cory and I had been very specific in our prayers everyday throughout the pregnancy. We had prayed for a safe, quick, and easy vaginal delivery and God truly did answer our prayers. We could not have asked for a better delivery.

Cory and I were both pretty exhausted. I think we went about 48 hours with little to no sleep, but we were thrilled to have our son with us. Cory has been fun to watch. He is such a wonderful father and loves the little guy so much. We both do. Words cannot express how thankful we are for delivering a healthy baby boy and for all the prayers that were said for us. We cannot wait to introduce him to all of you in the near future. I will post more pics soon. For now, please continue to keep our growing family in your prayers as we adjust to this big change.