A Baby Boy Finally Comes

I know that I said I would post before we gave birth, but as usual, time got away from me.  We still keep ourselves busy with Jacob's appointments, and Josh is out of school now for summer, so that is easier but we are not as busy as we were (maybe until now).  Jacob is progressing very well, and does something new all of the time that gives me continued hope and encouragement for his recovery.

Yesterday we welcomed our third baby boy (will post again when we have a name for him).  On July 14, 2011 at 6:27 pm, came this little cutie pie at exactly 8 pounds. He is healthy and we are all doing well.

 The morning started out pretty early (about 4:40 am) with the contractions coming on pretty good.  I had been waking up for the last 5 days though with pretty good contractions at around the same time, only to have them die off about an hour or two later.  Yesterday, though, they didn't die down, so I decided to wake Rick up (I let him sleep til 7am) when they got to about 5 minutes apart.  We made the plans for the boys, and got ready to go to the hospital, and sure enough as we were getting ready to go I threw up, so I knew we were doing the right thing.  As we were on the way to the hospital though, the contractions started to slow down a bit.  I was getting a bit worried, because I was sent home the day Joshua was coming, only to be back at the hospital a couple hours later in lots of pain and then getting checked in close to giving birth. This time though, since we moved to Meridian and were giving birth at St. Luke's downtown, Boise, I did not want the same scenario.  We got checked in and we were monitored first and we still had some good contractions, but they did start to slow down, (and I was still at a 2-3 which I had been at for the last 4 weeks), but my cervix was soft, so they sent me walking.  We walked for an hour, even climbing the stairs from the 1st floor to the 9 th and back down to the 2nd, before going back to triage to get checked.

When we got back in the contractions had picked up again, but I was still at a 3, so we sat on a ball for a while and she checked me again.  The nurse checked me again and I had still made very little progress, so they checked me out to send me home and told me if they got stronger and every 3 minutes consistently and lasted at least a minute long, to come back.  As I was getting dressed, I had about 4 big contractions in a matter of 10 minutes, and I was worried to go all of the way home, so we went to the cafeteria for lunch.  Sure enough as we sat at lunch, the contractions went on every three minutes, got stronger and lasted over a minute each time, so we headed back to triage.  They had to check me back into the hospital, and put me on the monitor again and checked me.  This time I was at a 3 1/2, so she called my doctor and she decided to come and check me.  When she got there, I was at a 4 and I had the contraction that brought the tears, so she decided, it was time.  She broke my water for me and we were not on our way back home (thank goodness!). I am so glad we did not make our way home before lunch.  From there we went to our delivery room, and I kept asking when the anesthesiologist would be there, because I was really ready for the epidural by then.  The contractions had become very painful and I was getting tired of the pain.  He finally came and I was happy again.  Of course the contractions slowed down, but they have ways of making them start again. Any way, we progressed pretty quick from there and by 6 pm, we were ready to go (which is good because my doctor had a place to be around 6:30).  Needless to say everything went pretty smooth from there (my doc was a few minutes late though, but I was so glad she stayed to deliver our beautiful baby boy).