28 Floors Up...: He's Here!!!

Matt and I welcomed our first child to the world on May 20th at 11:32pm. We are so blessed to have a healthy son and could not be more excited to be a family of three:)

As you might remember from my last post, I talked about how I was 38 weeks and 1 day and was really hoping to be early for various reasons. Well, God had a plan in mind for us (just as he always does) and Grayson was born just one week later (39 weeks and 1 day).

The NATO Summit was taking place a week before my due date, so my mom came in town early just in case I went into labor before my due date. This way I would not be trapped alone and left to get to the hospital by myself. I am not sure if you all saw anything about NATO but there were lots of protests and some of which got pretty violent only three blocks away from where we live; so bad that on Sunday and Monday people were having to come back and walk our dogs for us, but could not make it to our place because there was so much congestion on Michigan Ave. BUT...fortunately for me, NATO started on Sunday, May 20th and I started having contractions on Saturday night.

Picture right before dinner. Our last night with just the two of us;)

Lookin' large!

At dinner, my contractions were pretty steady at 5 min apart. While I was not in excruciating pain, I did have discomfort. They give you the analogy that you will be in really bad pain, but honestly I have a high pain tolerance, so I just thought I should call anyways. After dinner, they told me to come in to evaluate me. There I was evaluated and my contractions had moved to about 3-4 min apart. BUT, I was still not that dilated, so they had me walk the hospital in a circle for 2 hours (this was at midnight)...

After walking, I had to get monitored again for another hour. By then, my contractions were 1-2 min apart but I was still not in excruciating pain. So, the nurse came back in and was just about to let me go when she noticed something odd in the charts. Apparently, his heartbeat had dropped when I had a few contractions, which worried them. Also, at this time the nurse checked me again and "thought" I was 4 cm dilated... So, at this time they went ahead and admitted me to labor.

Waiting in triage

After being brought upstairs, I settled in and went ahead and got my epidural before they broke my water (pretty much I had a pain free labor and delivery). Shortly after that, the Dr. came in and discovered something.... I WAS ONLY 2cm dilated...!!! So, I have now had an epidural and the nurse, Brenda, from downstairs had sent me up to labor pre-maturely. However, since I had already had the epidural they went ahead and started me on Pitocin (this was at 8 am).

Waiting...

Well...9 hours later, I was only 5 cm dilated and he was not dropping at all. Apparently, he was face up which was delaying the process. Since I was not progressing they were just going to go ahead and break my water. But, there was a risk involved, the umbilical cord could drop before his head and they would have to do a c-section (which next time I am opting for) OR there could be no risk and his head would come down first, just like it did:) I quickly went from 5-10 in an hour. At 9pm, they said to start pushing and two and half hours later he was born. I was bound and determined not to have the dr's use any devices and they did not have to (another huge blessing). While my labor was long, I would not change any of it because we got the most precious gift from God! We could not be more excited!!!