The Best of Both Worlds: Benjamin's Birth Story

Most of you might not be interested in this, but I'm writing about about the day Benjamin was born so I won't forget any details. If you're not into the details, just scroll down to the pictures. And I'm sorry for all of the pictures to follow the story, but I couldn't decide which ones to include.

I went to the doctor on Wednesday, October 14 (1 day after my due date) and I was dilated to a 2. Dr. B said that our little boy would be here by the weekend and he'd be a lot bigger than Mary Elizabeth was. He was right on both predictions! After I left the doctor's office, I started feeling more contractions, but figured it was just excitement or settling down after work. Later that evening, we went with my family to eat at Mimi's Cafe to celebrate my mom's birthday. I should have known something was up because I did NOT order anything! I just felt so out of room that I picked off of everyone else's plates and ate fried pickle chips (mmmm!). When we left, Drew looked at me and asked if I was going straight to bed because I looked zapped! I tucked ME into bed and then fell asleep on her bed until 10. I then moved to my bed only for a little while. Drew finally came to bed around 11 not realizing that he wasn't going to get any sleep because as soon as he laid down, I started feeling a lot of pressure in my lower back. I got up and walked around, laid back down, tossed and turned, walked around some more, then took a bath. After that didn't work, I called the hospital to only be told to take some Tylenol and get some rest. Ha...easier said than done! Drew then told me that I was complaining every 10 minutes or less and then I remembered what terrible back labor I had with ME and that this pressure wasn't just a stomachache. So I called my friend Anna Carol (the girl that never sleeps and who had just got finished reading my blog update) at 1:00 a.m. to ask her to come stay with ME. Drew and I both thought that we'd just be going to the hospital for me to be checked and then come back home. But by the time we got there around 1:45 a.m. and after the nurse checked me, I was already dilated to a 5 and effaced 80%. Then the nurse told us we'd have a baby boy by the morning!

So we called the grandparents and they all arrived there by 2:30 a.m. to sit and watch me have contractions. I know that probably wasn't much fun for them, but everyone agreed I was way nicer than last time! Probably because I didn't lay in a hospital bed for 2 days without eating this time around and I didn't have that awful Stadol drug so I was much more alert! Then around 3:00 a.m., I got my FIRST epidural. The nurse told me that I would probably still feel a little pressure, but I shouldn't feel any pain. So I dealt with feeling a lot of painful pressure for about an hour, then I received another epidural that did work. Awww...heaven!!! In the meantime, my water broke at 3:30 a.m. All I can say is that I'm so thankful that my water didn't break at school and thank God for epidurals!

The nurses change shifts at 7 a.m., so my nurse that had been with me checked me before she left and said that I was dilated to 9 1/2 cm and Baby Dees would be here in about 2 hours. Well, shortly after my new nurse came in, she wanted to check me as well and said that I was ready now! So Dr. Singleton came in at 7 a.m., I started pushing at 7:16 a.m., and after only 2 pushes, our lives changed forever at 7:28 a.m.!

Smiling through a contraction before my epidural. The bedrail was my best friend to hold onto during every contraction. Epidurals are AWESOME when they work!

Did I just deliver Mary Elizabeth's clone?

Love at first sight!

Daddy's love at first sight.

Hmmm...so what's my name?

Why are the nurses standing back? Apparently Benjamin's umbilical cord was a "very healthy cord" because it was especially thick and there were no kinks in it. I felt like they were talking about something from Ripley's Believe It or Not. The nurses didn't want to get squirted when they cut the cord off of Ben.

Aghh!!! Get that water off of me! Benjamin has hated baths since Day 1!

Awww...life is good again!

I just had to show off his dimples in this picture!

ME and Benjamin meeting for the first time. Right when she saw him, she pointed to him and said "What's that?" just like she does everyday.

Her hospital entertainment (a Dora magna-doodle).

As in the words of Thumper from Bambi..."So whatcha gonna call him?" (Thanks, Dad, for that movie line!). Drew and I finally had some alone time around 4 p.m. and agreed on Benjamin! How terrible to go through half a day nameless!