He's Here!

Here we are at the hospital. This is the beginning of my 29-hour labor, which resulted in the most beautiful and important event in our lives. Believe it or not, I was having contractions in this picture, but they weren't that bothersome.

Monday morning I called the doctor to let her know that I had a "bloody show" and was directed to go directly to the hospital. I didn't think I would be staying, but once you're there, you're there. I called Dan immediately and told him to come home. We got to the hospital and I was told that I was definitely having contractions. The doctor was contemplating whether or not to keep me there or send me home. After a good 7 hours of contractions becoming worse, she felt that I should stay just in case and also that I would be induced the following morning if I hadn't given birth overnight.

The contractions were of course getting worse and I was becoming tired. Here's an indication of what was to come:

Dan was just snapping pictures of me. I totally don't remember this one, but from the look of my face you know I didn't care. Overnight, I tried getting some rest, but the pain was pretty horrible. I had rejected taking any pain killers because I wanted to go natural. Although, I knew I would have an epidural since they were inducing me. There was no way I was going natural after I was told that.

Anyway, Dan kept on urging me to take a pain killer so that I could sleep. I was going to be induced at around 8 in the morning and needed all the rest I could possibly get. At around 3:30 am, the doctor walked in and caught me holding on to the side rail for my dear life with probably an expression worse than the one I'm sporting in the picture. She asked me again how bad I was feeling and Dan jumped in and told her that I'm downplaying the pain (which I was). She decided to give me the pain killer and I couldn't reject it.

So now that I'm not feeling any pain, I figured I would sleep until they woke me up. It didn't quite work out that way. I had a reaction to the pain killer and spent the next 3 hours scratching my face and feeling as if I wasn't able to breathe (right because I needed this after about 15 hours of contractions). Anyway, by around 8 am I was induced. By then, the painkiller had worn off and I was now feeling worse than ever. There was also a possibility that I wouldn't be given an epidural because my blood platelets had come back low.

I for sure thought I wouldn't make it through this labor. By 10 am, I had only dilated another cm. bringing me to a whopping total of 4. My contractions were constant and absolutely horrible at this point. Luckily, my blood platelets came back good and I got my epidural. Once the numbness wore in, I was able to relax for the most part. I couldn't feel my contractions (although, I did feel the pressure) or my legs for that matter.

To cut this story short, William had to be vacuumed out because his heart rate would drop with each contraction. It turned out that he had his umbilical cord wrapped around his body. No problem, everything came out just fine.

He had a little bit of a cone head, but that quickly disappeared by the following day. William was born on September 11, 2007 at 3:11pm. He weighed 6 lbs. and 15 oz. and measures 20 inches. We're both doing great, just tired. On Thursday, we were released from the hospital. We're all extremely happy and love our little boy!



Here are two more pictures of William with the both us: