The Birth Day

Friday, August 28, 2009:

Friday started very early - I could not sleep past 5:00 so I went ahead and got up and got showered and ready to go. I puttered around the house waiting until Madelyn woke up to take her to school. We finally headed down to the hospital around 10:30. We sat around for a few minutes before they took me, and not Derek, back to the recovery room to begin the process. It made me more nervous not having Derek there. They hooked me up to the different machines (one for baby's heartbeat and one to measure contractions) and realized that I was contracting very 1-2 minutes already! The nurse had me lie on my side and they slowed down a little bit to around every 5 minutes. But when they were all done with the paperwork and allowed Derek to come back to the room, they really slowed down even more.

Getting ready to head back to the OR.

Around 11:30 they begin to get things really started. The doctors came to talk to us about the spinal and taught Derek how to get dressed. Right at around 12:00 I walked into the OR and began to get prepped. I did not realizes how much had to go on and how many people were part of this process! I was not feeling too nervous at this time but did get a little scared right before the spinal (done very similar to an epidural). Once I was numb, they laid me down and finished getting the room ready. Around 12:45 they called Derek to come back into the OR and began to cut. It was the strangest feeling when they were pulling and pushing me to get Mason out but at 1:01 PM he was out and SCREAMING!

First picture with Dr. Patton

The NICU was there to check him out. They weighed him (9 pounds, 3 ounces), cleaned him up a bit and then checked him out. He was doing very well so he was able to stay in the warmer in the OR until they were done with me! Derek left for a little bit while they were closing me up to show the pictures to family in the waiting room.

First semi-family picture (missing Madelyn)

Once they were done with me, I was wheeled back into recovery to wait for the spinal to wear off. To my surprise they not only let Mason stay with us during this time but my mom and Derek were both allowed to sit with me as well. I also got to feed him at this time (since Madelyn went straight to NICU after her birth this was a wonderful surprise) and he nursed like a champ. Once the spinal started to wear off and I could move my legs they took Mason to the nursery and me up to the postpartum room. We got upstairs around 4:00 and sat around with family until they finally brought Mason back to the room around 7:30 so I could feed him!

Daddy and Mason in recovery

We spent the rest of the evening loving on him!

We had a pretty good night - eating every 3-4 hours and sleeping in between. Around midnight the Neonatologist came in to let us know that he checked Mason out and looked over all his labs and deemed him PERFECTLY HEALTHY!! This was such an answer to prayers.

We are so in love with our sweet little boy!