He's here!

So now that I have a quick moment I wanted to update everyone on what went down July 22nd. By now many of you have heard that our super cute Son had arrived (we were scooped on Facebook) but are short on details. Well, at about 5:30 in the morning on Sunday the 22nd my water broke. Not a Hollywood explosion of epic proportions but more of a trickle minus any actual labor contractions. So Tim and I called our doula, Jenny, a close friend and let her know. We decided to wait on calling the hospital until actual labor contractions kicked in. Tim made us some delicious fruity pancakes which I finished about half of when I started to feel contractions coming pretty regularly. We called Jenny back when they were beginning to come less than 5 mins apart and thought she should probably come over, this was about 8 or 8:30 that morning. Jenny arrived as the contractions grew even closer together so we decided it was time to call the hospital so they could have a room ready for us when we arrived.

We arrived at the hospital soon enough where they checked vitals for me and baby which all looked good so we were left to labor. Within a short period of time the contractions became doubly intense and were nearly one right after the other. My mom arrived around this time. I recall at around 2pm or so thinking that I was pretty much over the whole process and said as much. One of my goals has been a totally natural childbirth, and so Tim and Jenny had been coached to not let me give up too easily. It appeared I was in transition, when most women want to throw in the towel but usually only just before you get to push. They reminded me that we were really close and that I should just try a little bit longer. A little bit longer turned into about 5 more hours.

Everything became kind of a blur for me, once the contractions started coming like an unstoppable train I was pretty much living moment to moment and had no idea of the time that was passing. I was literally existing breath to breath. Finally, around 7pm I was ready to push. It was a welcome change of pace for a while! Over the course of the whole process we were really blessed that the baby's and my vitals stayed really strong and stable. After nearly 3 hours of pushing though, he was just not making it down the birth canal and we saw our first sign of distress for the little guy. He had pooped in his bag of waters, we were now in a hurry to get him out. The doctor gave me 15 more minutes to push but it was no use, we needed a c-section.

I was wheeled away and Tim was suited up for the surgery. The hospital staff was great and had me pain free soon enough, it was a relief after 15 hours of hard labor. I was soon cracking jokes with the surgical crew. I have a weird sense of humor. In no time at all they had our perfect son out (I had felt nothing!) to many exclamations of "he's so big!" and "look at his giant neck". He was perfect and perfectly large, 10lbs 8oz. I probably could have pushed all week but might never have gotten him out.

It was so amazing, never has anything been so worth it, he's just awesome. Tim and I are so in love with our little giant baby. Also, I could have never gotten through the whole laboring process without Jenny, my Mom, and Tim. They were always there with water, cold compresses, and literally helped to physically support me through contractions while I tried laboring in different positions. It turned out that the baby was positioned sunny side up which meant I had "back labor" known for being very painful and and non-stop when it comes to contraction spacing. Because of my movement and exploration of different positions we were able to get him turned into the correct position for birth eventually, too bad his head was too big, 37 around centimeters to be exact!

Also, Tim is amazing. He has been the most wonderful partner throughout the whole pregnancy and was especially supportive during labor. I was literally hanging off of him through a lot of it but he never tired and was always at my side. I love him so much!

So next, the details you're really here for...