Our newest blessing

C arrived just about 24 hours ago. He weighed in at a healthy 10 lbs 13 ounces and was 23 inches long. He certainly doesn't look the part of a newborn...but his sounds, actions and smells are 100% newborn.

The preparation fot C's birth story started 4 weeks ago at my 35 week check up when we discovered via ultrasound that he already weighed a whopping 7.5 lbs and I was already dilated to a 2. I started praying for an early delivery or that the ultrasound was inaccurate. The dr and I discussed that I would have another c-section if this baby was bigger than 10.5 or 11 lbs and that we'd do another ultrasound at week 39 to see where we were at.

Week 39 rolled around and I just kept praying that I would go into labor. My appointment was on Thursday. Wednesday I was just begging God to put me into labor. Around 2 pm, I thought God answered my prayers. By 3 my contractions were less than 10 minutes apart and getting stronger...so I texted Jut and called Mom (the babysitter). By 5 when Mom arrived, I was down to about 4 minutes. I knew it was time.

We packed the kids off, packed the car, and headed to Wal*mart to pick up a couple big brother/big sister presents. My contractions slowed a bit at the store and so we decided to go out to dinner. By the time we got home, they were fizzling.

As the kids were already settled at Mom and Dad's for the night, we decided to leave them in case contractions started up again in the middle of the night. Well, despite the fact I was up almost all night, labor didn't kick into gear. But between the contractions that happened several times per hour and the dancing baby between the intmintient contractions, sleep alluded me. I was so frustrated! In the morning, Jut went and picked up the kids so my parents could go to work.

At 4, I went to the DR's office for my check-up. He checked me and offered to break my water the next morning at 7:30. He was shocked when I agreed...but I was shocked that he offered b/c of my VBAC status. But, he thought all systems were ready to go. He told me to come in at 6:30 and get prepped, he'd be in at 7:30 and we'd have a baby by noon. Sounded almost too easy to me...and that should have been a warning of things to come.

So, we had dinner as a family and then took the kids back to Mom and Dad's for the night. We went home for the second night in a row by ourselves. It was so wierd. X had never spent the night away and now he'd done it for two nights. We did some last minute things and set the alarm for 5:30 so we had time to go out and have a nice breakfast before starting the festivities.

Breakfast was nice but I was ready to get to the hospital...so I rushed through it. Big mistake. Jut kept telling me the entire time to slow down and enjoy it. I should have listened. We arrived at the hospital at 6:45 and were ready waiting in our room by 7:30. And there we stayed waiting...little did we know we'd wait for another 9 hours...

So at 10, we hear the nurse call the drs office. He'd be over at noon. Since I'm a VBAC, I'm under a no food/beverage rule once I'm admitted. Thankfully my nurse had compassion and gave me a couple of glasses of water after we found out he wouldn't be over until noon because my mouth was already horribly dry. She also allowed me to take off all the monitors that were recording nothing as I wasn't actually in labor.

At noon, the dr comes in and apologizes for the delay. Since I am a VBAC, he has to be on the floor while I'm in labor. He forgot about that when we discussed the induction the day before. He also explained that he still had some patients to see this afternoon but he'd be back at 2:30 and we'd get everything started. We were very frustrated. We could have spent the majority of the day with the kids and let them stay home last night. Mom brought the kids to the hospital for lunch, as we were doing nothing. It was apparent that they were melting down and we didn't have a baby yet.

Well, 2:30 comes and goes...3:30 comes and goes with no news....4:30...Jut keeps telling me that we won't see him until 6 and I'm having a difficult time keeping a positive attitude. At 4:45, the dr finally arrives and breaks my water. Yippee! He says we'll have the baby by 9.

My sister texts at 5:24, "are you in labor yet?" and I reply no and boom! It starts almost immediately as I hit send. Awesome! Dr comes in sometime and says its going great. If I was on a pit drip, he'd turn it down, but since it is all natural, away we go. I did find watching all the monitor numbers throughout labor very interesting. I didn't pay any attention to those during X's delivery. However, towards the end when the contractions never fell below 100, it did become more depressing rather than interesting.

At about 8:30, phase 2 started...pushing out an almost 11 lb baby is NOT fun. It only took 5-6 regular pushes (and lots of little tiny pushes) until C appeared. After push 2, dr said he was almost here and I accused him of lying. I pushed for 2 hours for X and didn't anticipate only 15-20 minutes of stage 2 with this delivery. Jut quickly backed up the dr with that he was coming. Sure enough, baby came out not too much later. No one wanted to wager a guess as to his size but the nursery nurse figured he was well over the 10 lb mark. When C was weighed, he tipped the scales at 10 lbs 13 ozs, and was 23 inches long.

Jut called Mom and Dad to share the news with the kids and they brought them right over. They were so excited! Of course, they were the most excited to recieve their big brother and sister presents...but they were excited to see and hold the baby too. After some of the excitement died down, Jut took the kiddos home so that they could sleep in their own beds and I got some wonderful cuddle time with my newest little guy. It was a LONG day of waiting but worth it all in the end!