One Week Ago ~ Today

My sweet little boy decided to make his much anticipated entrance into this world. It's funny how I have had two babies already, but I still questioned myself when labor began with this little one. There's not much of a labor story to tell, but for those of you interested it looked a little something like this:

~ @ 8:00 PM on Saturday, August 11th Tim and I went to Walmart to stock up on a few things (hoping Greyson was going to be on his way soon and therefore wanting the kitchen to be stocked for whoever would be keeping the girls).

~ After putting away all of our groceries we finally turned in for the night about 11:00 PM and although exhausted I was a tad restless. I was feeling a little sick at my stomach but couldn't really determine why/what was causing the "sick" feeling.

~ 12 AM I decided that maybe my stomach "sickness" was/were actually contractions and instead of getting up and down out of bed an going back and forth to the bathroom I would walk around the basement a bit and try to time contractions (if in fact that is what I was having). On my first few attempts to time the pain I was feeling I was getting a time interval of like 2 minutes with contractions lasting about 30 seconds each: WHAT?!?!? That can't be right.

~12:15 I woke Tim and asked him to time my contractions because I just KNEW I had to be doing something wrong. While Tim timed - I began packing my bag with the final necessities for the hospital and while I was packing I began having to lean over and breathe through the contractions (insert the moment I realized this was happening - I had no doubt at this point I was in labor...full blown labor). Tim's response to timing the contractions was "Lindsy, these are like 1.5-2 minutes a part - we need to GO TO THE HOSPITAL...we need to hurry".

~ 12:30 I paged the midwife and my Tim woke my sister to come sleep in the basement in case the girls woke up during the night

~12:45 the midwife called back and asked me several questions (when was your last appointment? how were you progressing? what number pregnancy is this for you? AND THEN: "Um, Honey...how far are you from the hospital?" Me: about 15 minutes I think Midwife: Well, you need to go ahead and get in the car and head to the hospital and I will too and I'll see you soon".

~ 1:10'ish Tim and I headed to the hospital and called my Mom (who wanted to be there for the birth, but at that point it wasn't looking promising).

~ 2:00 AM we were officially checked in, I had donned my super sexy hospital gown complete with front nursing slits (hawt!)  and were getting our initial monitoring done when the midwife came in to check my progress.

~ Truly - I figured she'd say 6-7 cm but much to our surprise or more accurately COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHOCK she said "Well, you are 9 cm and we are about to have a baby"! What?!?!? The nurses looked at me like I had 5 heads and then immediately started hustling about getting the warmer, the drape and all the other necessary items ready for "go time".

Even as I share this story I'm shocked at how it all unfolded because truthfully I'm still questioning how on earth I started labor with contractions 1-2 minutes apart...I mean, I've never heard of such.

~ 2:45'ish I started feeling pressure and paged the midwife who then came in and checked me and decided to go ahead and break my water because as she said "it's just right there and ready" and then she said "let me know again if you feel pressure, or the sensation to use the restroom" and then she sat at the end of the bed and waited (no joke) and got her supplies ready.

~The next part is kind of a blur but I began pushing at 2:58 AM and our sweet Greyson was born at 3:04....exactly 3 contractions later...weighing 8 lbs. 12 ozs. Hallelujah: he was finally here!

~ Right after Grey arrived, he was passed to the on call pediatrician because I had some meconium in my water and they wanted to take every precaution to ensure he was healthy as sometimes that can cause baby problems. Unfortunately he was having some breathing difficulty...a pattern they called "grunting" and they said it wasn't normal and that if it continued he would need to go directly to the NICU. I felt miles away in my hospital bed staring at him under the heating lamp across my room as they listened diligently to his lungs with a stethoscope and then would suction him with a bulb syringe and then listen again. This cycle repeated itself over and over again but then they moved to suction that was fed down his throat with a tube and then they'd listen again. I just sat there...watching...waiting....wondering. Thankfully the pediatrician was a stellar communicator and kept coming over to my bedside to explain what was happening and what they were doing. Basically, because he didn't spend much time in the birth canal - he didn't expel the amniotic fluid like he needed to and thus he was gagging/choking. My labor with Kennedy was quick and she had very similar issues in the early hours following her delivery. Ultimately after suction and coupage....they decided to allow me to have some skin to skin time with him to see if it helped him calm and improve his breathing. Finally - a moment with my boy:

 This boy enjoyed his skin to skin for about 1 minute and immediately began rooting around. It never ceases to amaze me how they come out hungry and knowing how to find food...it's just unreal. I asked the nurse if I could go ahead and try to nurse him and she said yes so away we went and here he is getting burped for the first time.

 I'm happy to report that the skin to skin and nursing cleared his grunting right up  - NO NICU for my boy thank heavens! Here we are with our son (still seems funny saying/typing that).

 Proud Daddy

 Because I didn't get an epidural, my release from L&D and into Mother/Baby was quick so by the time my Mom arrived (like 1.5 hours after I had him) I had already been moved to Mother/Baby and was waiting on Greyson to be returned to me from his bath in the nursery. Greyson was wheeled in and pretty immediately placed into Honey's arms:

 better late than never! =)

It's hard to believe it's been a week since Greyson joined our family.  It has been amazing, emotional, challenging, thrilling, tiring, rewarding, humbling and the list goes on. He is an extremely content baby only crying for diaper changes and trips in the carseat for the most part. He is sleeping about what I would expect him to at this point but I'm looking forward to that increasing because Momma is tired!

I have lots more pictures to share from our time at the hospital but I think this posting is long enough. More to come.....