The Story

(Feel free to skip this and get right to the baby pictures.)

My last pregnant picture: 38 1/2 weeks

On Friday, December 9th, I woke up around 1:00am with what turned out to be my first contraction. Between 2:00 and 3:00 am I was up a few more times with strong cramps in my belly. By 3:30 I decided to just get up and go watch TV. I had felt pains like these in the last few days, but they were never regular. I expected to get up and wait for them to go away, but this time they didn't! I started to get excited. I really didn't want to be induced, and I was 2 days over my due date, with an appointment for Monday, the 12th to see the doctor again and decide what to do if the baby hadn't come yet. Between 4:00 and 5:00 am I had about 4 or 5 more contractions. At about 5:30 Chad got up to see what I was up to. By now my contractions were about every 3 minutes as I paced back and forth in the kitchen. We downloaded a contraction tracker app (I know, cool, right?!) on Chad's phone. You press start and stop to time your contractions, and it would keep a running log of length of contractions and breaks in between - which was actually EXTREMELY helpful. I didn't have to worry about writing anything down or staring at the clock or anything. I highly recommend it if you're planning on having a baby anytime soon.

Anyways. We called the doctor's office to find out when they opened. We decided to wait until they opened at 8:00am, and be there first thing. Meanwhile, I paced a track through the house, walking the circle between the living room, tv room, bedroom, and kitchen. We were supposed to wait until my contractions were 2-5 minutes apart for 2 hours. Around 7:45 we started gathering up our stuff and making our way to the car. By now my contractions were about a minute and a half long at about a minute and a half apart.

We got to the doctor at 8:00 where I checked in and said I thought I was having a baby. They nicely checked me in and sat me in the waiting room for about 10 minutes. No hurry. Somebody finally came and got me, a midwife checked me, where it was determined that yes, I was in active labor at this point. Thank goodness because I was afraid they were going to tell me to go home and wait a few hours and come back. I was admitted to the hospital around 8:45 am, shown my lovely delivery room, and gave up all privacy for the next 2 days. (By the way - whose brilliant idea is it to ask you a billion health history questions while you're having contractions less than 2 minutes apart? It seems like they should have you fill that all out at one of your later doctor appointments so it's ready to go when you need it.) They ordered my epidural, but the anesthesiologist was busy with another mother, monitoring her for possible C-Section. So we waited. By the time he came in at 10:15 my contractions were almost back to back, and I admitted a 10 on the infamous pain chart. They put in my IV and finally put in the epidural. And, I know people say this all the time, but seriously - whoever invented the epidural has my eternal gratitude. It. Was. AWESOME. Within minutes, I was totally numb. Just like when they numb you up at the dentist, it felt like my legs were twice their normal size, and I had to keep looking to make sure they weren't. They insisted I would still be able to feel "pressure" and some temperature sensation, but I felt absolutely nothing. Apparently I'm pretty sensitive to pain medications. The weird part was when I tried to move my legs and they would flop randomly. It was pretty creepy. For about an hour and a half after that, Chad and I just sat around. We updated family, watched an episode of West Wing (Chad did - I fell asleep) and enjoyed drugged up delusion.

At 11:55 the doctor came in a broke my water, and we waited some more. Chad went home to check on the puppy, got called back because they were talking about having me start pushing, got back just in time for them to change their minds, and went back to check on the dog again. He got back around 2:00 and at 2:10 or 2:15 I started pushing. Baby was born at 3:01pm.

They handed me the baby right after he was born, and had Chad cut the umbilical cord. Then they took him away to weigh him, measure him, and clean him up. At which point it was determined he was 9 lbs. 7 oz. Thanks a lot Chad. After he was delivered, the nurses told me they kept thinking "Jeese! How big is this kid's head?!" because they kept telling me he was "almost here!" when apparently he wasn't.

With his daddy right after he was born:

My doctor took really good care of me, and came in just to deliver my baby. He was supposed to be out Christmas shopping with his family. Anyways. I was so surprised by how quickly everything went. I was really surprised to find my contractions close enough together to go to the doctor's office after only 5 hours. Well... it sounds a lot longer now, but it went by really fast.

Everything went well - baby was healthy and there were no complications for him or me. At some point after that, Chad went down to the nursery with the baby to videotape his first bath. They brought the baby back with a cute little hat.


At about 8:00pm we moved to a recovery room (apparently they were completely full Friday afternoon - so we had to wait longer than normal). I have to say - it is amazing that you can go through all of that and be walking only a few hours later.

They took my IV out at some point in the night. I was woken up at 6:40am for a blood draw. Chad went home for the night, and came back around 6:30 or 7:00 that morning. I took a bath in my jacuzzi tub (yay!) and got dressed in my regular clothes and felt 100 billion times better. We spent the day hanging out in the room, walking around the hospital, and trying to get used to our new baby. He spent most of his time in the nursery when he wasn't hungry. We went in to check on him and he was peacefully sleeping in a swing. So Chad went out and bought a swing. He does seem to enjoy it. At some point it was determined that the baby's blood sugar needed to be monitored, so they pricked his heel every time before they brought him to me to be fed. Poor little guy. That afternoon, our friends Nate and Kate came down from Rexburg to visit us. We had fun hanging around with them in our cramped little hospital room. The YW President I work with also came to visit.

Chad went home again Saturday night and came back around 8:00 Sunday morning. We watched the obligatory informational Infant CPR and Choking videos and the don't-shake-your-baby video. We spent the day trying to get ready to go home. I took another bath/shower and got dressed, did our checkout information, Chad took multiple trips to the car, and we were FINALLY ready to leave. By this time, I was ready to not be stuck in a little hospital room, on a hospital bed. I made a comment as we waited for Chad to pull up the car that the hospital was awfully quiet (although it was a Sunday afternoon). The CNA waiting with me said everyone was going home that day. They were full on Friday when I came in, and by the end of the day Sunday they were going to have 2 patients. Weird how that works out.


We got home at about 3:00 Sunday afternoon. Some people in our ward brought us a delicious dinner at 5:00 or 5:30. The hospital food was pretty good - and apparently Chad was getting jealous. He was happy for something a little more "home cooked" than a ham sandwich.

We went to the pediatrician yesterday, and everything is fine. I have been feeling really good too. I haven't been really sore or uncomfortable as I was promised I would be (especially after how big he was), and I'm attributing a lot of that to my awesome doctor. And the rest of it I am attributing, again, to the fact that my mom let me eat dirt when I was little. My immune system rocks. I am also wearing regular jeans again!!! YAYYYY! I really hated the whole "panel" deal which meant your jeans continued pretty much up to your armpits, which made everything more uncomfortable. At least for me.

And here we are - day 2 on our own of being a little family of 3. Chad went back to work yesterday, and is there now. Lady has been adjusting to having a baby in the house. She is a good dog - and I think that he wears her out more than anything. This is what she was doing last night when he was crying:

Charlie is a very happy baby so far. When he's not eating, he's sleeping. Like I said, he did cry for a little while last night, but eventually calmed right down and slept. He is sleeping now and has been for almost ... 5 hours?!! I guess I should wake him up and feed him. He is currently making little squeaks, but still sleeping. This is what he's doing now:
So, without further ado - here are some more pictures. Chad will have to get the videos ready so I can put them here too.