I finally started having contractions Friday morning, May 25, exactly one week overdue. I woke up at 5:30 and instantly knew this was the real deal...I was in labor. They started out about every 10-15 minutes and were very intense. Within the hour, though, they progressed to about every 4-6 minutes. By 7 am, they were every 2-5 minutes and I could barely think straight. We decided to head to the hospital. Ouch, this was no walk in the park!
After arriving at the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitors and checked me and I was about 3 cm dilated. After calling in my doctor, they moved me into the labor and delivery room. My doc (who is just plain awesome) stopped by and saw the horrendous pain I was in and said I could go ahead and get the epidural as soon as they started an IV and got a quick bag of fluids in me.
It felt like hours later, but I finally got the epidural and hallelujah, it was a miracle! The pain vanished and I was able to relax and enjoy the process. Dr. Schwope came back in right after and I was already 5 cm. She said she was going to go ahead and break my water, but for some reason it wasn't there anymore! It broke without me knowing (maybe in the bathtub?). We never figured out how that happened.
My contractions never really showed up very well on the monitors, but I kept dilating really quickly and the baby did great through the whole labor process. They never had to give me Pitocin or anything, my body did it's own thing.
By 4 pm, I was 10 cm and ready to push. David was right by my side and watched our baby enter this world a little after 5 pm. They put him right on my chest and his Daddy and I joined him on his first cry. It was so amazing to see his tiny little face looking back at us. Love at first sight!
He weighed in at 8 lbs even and 18 inches long!
After getting love from all of the grandparents we got to settle into our room for the night. He stayed in the hospital for three nights because they had to run a culture on him to make sure he didn't need antibiotics (precautionary because we didn't know how long my water had been broken) and because he had a mild case of jaundice. Luckily, they let me stay with him even though I was technically discharged after two nights.
Monday morning, May 28, we took Nathan David Holley home!
We are enjoying him so much! He is the best gift and our greatest blessing! Stay tuned for more updates! :)
