Three become four!

Our family just got a little bigger!

One last photo of me pregnant

Waiting for his arrival

Drum roll.........
...
...
...
here he is!

Please join us in welcoming our newest addition- our new little doodlebug!

He was born at 38wks 3 days on 5-15-10 at 10:32am

He was 7lbs 1.8oz and 19in long

My boys

{how perfect are they??}



Labor Story
{for those who are curious}
The beginning of my 37th week, I had nights of contraction spurts. I would have contractions all over the place for 2-3hr spurts, but nothing enough to make me go to the hospital. I knew he would be coming within the week, as the spurts got more and more intense and I lived on my birthing ball. Friday night we decided to go to the movies as a family- one last family date night if you will. We wanted to go to the dollar theater and see How to Train a Dragon, but our silly GPS sent us to Cinamarks offices instead of the theater {LOL}. So we missed the Dragon movie and decided we would just stop by another theater and see Avatar {yes, I was probably the last to see the movie}. The whole time we are driving, I am having time-able contractions that are 7ish minutes apart. During the movie, the contractions got more and more intense and were closer to 4-6 minutes apart. We left the movie and headed straight to the hospital where I was put into triage. I had to be 4cm dilated to be admitted and came in 3cm. They monitored me and about 30mins later I was at a full 4cm. Up to labor and delivery we went and my mom was headed our way. I had to walk the halls to help "walk my cervix down" and hopefully become more dilated and have my water break.
After doing this for about an hour, my midwife Becky said it was time to break my water. The anesthesiologist came in to start my epidural. It had to be taken out and redone because I have a slight curve to the bottom of  my spine from doing gymnastics and it caused me to only feel the epidural on one side of my body. After we got it just right she did a test dose that made my blood pressure go crazy. At this point she said that we had to talk- I wasn't handling the epidural well and my only option was to keep it on a level one. She explained that their epidural had 3 stages- 1. to ease contractions 2. make labor easy 3. cocktail after birth to help with the initial recovery. I was going to have to keep it in that first stage that is meant to only help ease contractions and that worried me {I am a weeny when it comes to pain}!
Becky broke my water and said she would be back to check my cervix in 2 hrs. To me that seemed like a really long time, as I was only in labor with little man for 3hrs and pushed for only 30mins. My contractions started picking up and after about 30 minutes I called Becky in and had her check me and I was already at 6cm. She couldn't believe how fast I was progressing and told me that when I feel them so intense and they don't let up to call her back. After about 20 more minutes, I felt them so intense and had the urge to push. She came in and I was fully dilated and he was beginning to crown.
At this time, we have a dear friend Tracy coming to watch little man so that my mom could be in the delivery room with us. She was 10 minutes away and I could feel my body pushing all by itself. I rolled on my side to literally keep the baby in so my mom could be there. As my mom walks in the door I started pushing and he came out in 3 small pushes! The greatest thing about my inability to handle a full epidural was that I could feel EVERYTHING! I could feel his head come out and his shoulders shift inside of me. It was the most beautiful thing of my life! It was as if delivering natural, but being able to enjoy him coming out with out the pain. I had full mobility of my body too- so much so that I was up and walking around 30mins after labor and showering about an hour after that! Delivering with a midwife was a great experience too! She had me in a super cool position when pushing. She dropped the end of the bed down and had me use her and the nurses hips as stirrups. It was almost as if I was standing up to deliver- way cool! She also took my placenta and showed me all the parts and how it holds the baby. It was the best birthing experience!!! Aside from his little bruised nose that I gave him by holding him in waiting for my mom {poor guy} he was absolutely perfect!

Little man kept saying "look mama, baby toes!! look mama, baby eyes!!"
It was the cutest thing ever- he loves his baby brother and wanted to "hold-a tha babeeee" the whole time!