Home!

Wow!! It's almost 6 pm on a beautiful summer day and we are home from the hospital!! Where do I even begin. I guess I'll tell the whole story...

We went to the beach on Tuesday as I think Jason has already mentioned. I pretty much had contractions the whole day, on the car ride up, on the beach and on the way home. I even had downloaded a contraction timer for my Iphone and I knew they were getting pretty close together. We got home and around 4:30 pm I called the OB's office, she asked me some questions and concluded that it sounded like I was ready to come in. So I hung up, told Jason that we could get on our way and we started to get our stuff together. (This is about the time when I got in the shower and when I got out, he had piled every toiletry this house has ever had into one spot so I could pick what to bring, and he was frantically disinfecting the kitchen countertops; he cleans when he is nervous.) Anyway, during the course of gathering everything up, my contractions of course STOPPED. Annoying. So then I got dressed to go to Jason's softball game (he had long since planned not to play) but I was like, we have to do SOMETHING and I'm not sitting around the house waiting for the contractions to start up again. It then started to pour, the game got cancelled and after the rain stopped we took Tate around the block a few times. My contractions started again and quickly were five minutes apart and pretty strong. My biggest fear was going to the hospital and being sent home for not being far enough along, but finally at around 8 pm we got in the car and drove over.

8:45 pm has me in the antenatal room and the nurse tells me that despite my contractions I am only 1.5 cm dilated. I said, You CANT send me home, my contractions are so strong...She said, go walk around for a couple hours. Which is exactly what we did. The first floor of the hospital can be walked in a big loop/square and Jason and I must have walked it over a dozen times, stopping every time I had a contraction so I could basically grip the railing on the wall and swear. I was in so much pain I thought I was going to explode with each one.

10:45 pm and the nurse tells me I'm STILL only 1.5 cm dilated. I gave her a look like she better figure something out because again, I'm not leaving. She measured my cervix again and with a little slight of her hand - magic! I was 3 cm and she was welcoming me to the delivery unit ;)

The next 90 minutes is a blur. My contractions were so bad that I just didn't know what to do with myself and the time it took them to move me to the delivery room, get the anesthesiologist, do the paperwork, questionnaire, and get the epidural seemed to take forever. Once I did get it, wow. Just so unbelievably good. I did not feel a thing and I think I was in and out of sleep for awhile.

2:30 am and the OB comes in. She had plans to rupture my water and all I saw was this long rod before I felt a super sharp pain. I pretty much shrieked and she gave me a puzzled look like I should not have felt that. Long story short, another anesthesiologist came in and I got more pain meds even though I couldn't feel any contractions with the initial epidural.

3:00 am and I think I posted to this blog about feeling great and just waiting until it was time to push. The OB came back in around 3:45 am, successfully broke my water and then for the next 90 minutes, although I didn't feel any contractions, with each one I felt more and more pressure as the baby descended.

5:15 am, time to push! I was fully dilated and scared to death. I was shaking pretty much uncontrollably as they got everything set up. So nervous, didn't know if pushing was going to hurt even more (turns out it feels much better to push than try not to), how long it would take, etc.

6:00 am, the OB is paged because he is right there, so close to being born. He needed to be turned as he was coming out, which ended up in the cord wrapping around his neck so Jason did not get to cut it. Pretty sure he was fine with that, although I know he watched everything else happen and was in general my biggest cheerleader (love you babe). He was amazing. When the baby came out at 6:15 am they put him immediately on my chest, suctioned his nose and mouth and wiped/hit his back to get him to start breathing and crying. I remember counting his ten fingers before they took him over to the warmer and did all their other "brand new baby" procedures.

After that, a big mix of emotions of course. We stayed together in the delivery room for awhile before being moved to the post-natal area, where we then slept, ate, etc. before all our visitors started to arrive. And then from that time on, the hospital experience was nothing but fantastic. Friends, family, wonderful nurses and staff, and of course the best part, Ashton. This morning Jason left to come home and check on tate, take a shower, etc. and I finally sent A to the nursery so I could shower and put myself together a little. I could not get back there fast enough to get him, for the 45 minutes he was gone I missed him like crazy and couldn't wait to get him back.

As of right now my favorite thing to do is stare at him. I love his little noises, his sneezes, yawns, fingernails, tiny shoulders and funny feet.

Most people know my nightly routine is to take Tate to the park so he can get some exercise and I can get some fresh air.  Tonight is not any different except we have a little nugget that is coming with us :) It's a beautiful summer evening and our new family is home. Can't imagine being more grateful for everything I have been blessed with.