Birth Story

After a very long break from blogging, as I adjusted to the increased size of my family, I'm back.  What has happened in the past two months? Lots of things.  I'll start with the birth of my newest baby boy.

As my due date approached, our family support system sorta fell apart.  Injuries and illnesses plagued our immediate family who were planning on coming to help out once I had the baby.  Thankfully, everyone is doing well, but we were left in a lurch.  My sister graciously took time off from school to come stay with Grady while Taylor and I were in the hospital.

I was scheduled to be induced on March 27th.  An ultrasound on the 26th measured the baby's weight at 9lbs 10 oz, so we wanted to evict him before he got any bigger.  I had been having lots of braxton hicks contractions for about a week but nothing ever came of them.  I told my sister to come on the 26th just in case I went into active labor.  She showed up at my house around 11pm.  I woke up at 3am with contractions 4-5 minutes apart.  Good timing!  We got to the hospital at 5am.  My pain was still tolerable so I refused any IV pain meds and said I'd wait for my epidural.  One of my nurses said "well that may be a while."  I didn't appreciate this comment, nor did I understand why it would be a while.  I sat there answering the admission questions as my contractions became more and more intense.  I couldn't figure out why my nurse hadn't contacted my doctor about the epidural, but for some reason I kept my mouth shut (don't ask me why).

Finally, the doctor came in to check on me.  It was around 6 or 6:30am.  At this point I had become very vocal during my contractions.  My loud grunts and moans may have freaked Taylor out a little.  I was progressing very quickly.  Once the doctor finishing checking my progress, I requested my epidural, immediately!  After what seemed like forever, the anesthesiologist arrived and I was soon feeling much more comfortable.

After only about 20 minutes of pushing, Dean Isaac Leonard was born.  He weighed exactly what they estimated, 9 pounds 10 ounces.  22 inches long.

Now Dean is 6 weeks old.  I will have more to update about him in future posts.