SUNDAY NIGHT PUSH - 5 of my siblings thinking they could make the baby come! Kind of worked - 12 hours later...

You should have heard the whoopin and hollerin going on over here on Monday afternoon right after lunch! I don’t know if anyone has ever been happier to have wet pants in their life 🙂 Ben came home for lunch and went back for a 2:00 meeting. Michelle came over right about then because I did not want to try and entertain my kids on minimal monday. I confirmed that my water had broken – which is actually sometimes hard to know but this one I was 99% sure. I called Ben who was probably the 2nd happiest person to hear that I had wet pants and so at 2:02 he promptly excused himself from the 2:00 meeting. I called my Dr. to see if I needed to wait for some contractions to kick in or make sure it was my water breaking and he said just go to the hospital cause we are having this kid either way (I love my Dr.). Michelle headed home with 4 extra kids 🙂 I packed my hospital bag, did my nails, put on makeup and took a hot bath – — (not really but that’s what my mom did when her water broke with me so I thought about doing the same :)) Ben and I checked in at UVRMC just after 3pm and they got me a room and a nurse and had me all hooked up and checked in at 4pm. I told them that I need an antibiotic because I had tested positive on the Group B test but it took them until 4:25 to confirm that with my Dr and get the IV started.

ready to have this baby! Contractions starting to kick in.

So a 4:25 IV meant we wanted to wait until 8:25 to have the baby so that he wouldn’t have to do all of the Group B testing. About this time I had felt enough labor in my back to remind me that I really do need an epidural and the nurse convinced me that I did not need to wait for excrutiating pain before getting the epidural. So I got it. I was at a 3 when the nurse checked me and at 5:30 when the Dr came I was at a 5. I have had short labors in the past so we were thinking baby could come anytime and we probably wouldn’t be able to wait the 4 hours. Labor was all on its own this time, no Pitocin. At 7:30 they prepared the room for new baby and everyone was ready except the baby… He was head down but face up and everything was just right that he was staying in – could we wait until 8:25? I was a little nauseous at this point and I had the Shivers/Shakes but the epidural was doing its job so we waited. Right at the 4 hour mark we were all ready for baby. This time we prepped the delivery room again, I pushed for 2 contractions and he was born at 8:30!!

Raymond Thomas

skin to skin is the latest trend

they want baby to try nursing in that first hour if possible

nurses and Dr said his umbilical cord was huge - enough to grow 5 babies - ok

cleft chin, bigger nose and he has hair!

We love baby Ray! Official birthday is February 13th at 8:30pm. He weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces. Measured 20 inches. He is 100% healthy. And I am having my best baby recovery yet. That’s his birth story, next post will be about this first week.