The Greatest Gift Of All

well this post is long overdue as it has been 2 weeks today since our little man made his grand entrance into this world.

His birth story goes like this:

At 8:20pm on Weds Dec 23rd my water broke. I was laying at home on the couch, thinking I should wrap the last of the present when I decided to lay down for a minute first. Well I had just laid down when I felt a gush of fluid, at first I thought I might have peed my pants but then realized it was my water. The contractions started right after this and were 3-4 minutes apart and 1- 1 1/2 minutes in length. After about 2 hours we decided to head into labor and delivery.

Just as we were arriving, more of my water broke so I had to walk into the hospital with wet pants, so fun! It was 10:30 by this point and the contractions were now right on top of each other. The doctor checked me and I was only at 2 cm, but he figured I would go very fast and order the epi right away. He also said the way our little man was laying only part of my water broke so during the check the rest of it came out. Thank goodness it happened there because it was a bucket full.

At 12:00 am the anesthesiologist finally arrived and administered the epi. Thank goodness too because I was in so much pain and having contractions right on top of each other, there was no relief. Unfortunately the epi didn't take and only numbed my right leg. I could still feel the contractions and wasn't able to rest at all.

At 2:00 am the nurse checked me and I was only 3 cm, the doctor figured with the contractions I was having that I should be progressing faster so they decided to start pitocin to speed things up. Unfortunately it didn't speed things up.

At 8:00 am I was still 3 cm dilated and was in so much pain that I had to get another epi, unfortunately the anesthesiologist didn't arrive for another hour and a half later. I was in so much pain at this point that I started throwing up, this lasted for about 30 minutes. Not fun at all! At 9:30 am, I received my second epi and this time it worked. Only a little too well. I was completely numb from the waist down and could not even move my toes, so in went the catheter.

Sometime between 10 am and 12:30 pm I went from 3 cm to 10 cm. The doctor told me to wait it out a bit though to see if the head would come down a bit more. I also spiked a fever around 10 am and was put on penicillin in case of infection.

At 2:00 pm it was time to push. Since I was completely numb, I couldn't feel any contractions which made it extremely hard to push. By this point I had been in labor for almost 20 hours with not much relief, no sleep and nothing to eat for 30 hours. Needless to say, I had no energy to push. In the end I had to get an episiotomy and out he came. Two hours after I had started pushing our boy was born.

Liam Thomas arrived into this world at 4:10 pm on Christmas Eve, giving us the greatest gift one could ever receive. He was 8 lbs 10 oz and 21.5 inches long, with the fullest head of dark hair anyone had ever seen. He was absolutely gorgeous. He wasn't crying and immediately after Joel cut the cord he was rushed off. The nurses and doctor believed he had an infection due to my water being broken for so long, my temp spike, and the effects of the long hard labor.

I also had more bleeding then normal so I had to be monitored for quite a while in recovery. So Liam was being watched in the nicu and I was being watched in recovery. I didn't get to hold my boy until about 8 pm that night, when I fed him for the first time.

What an amazing moment that was, still brings tears to my eyes. He was so beautiful and had a great latch and suck. Christmas couldn't get any better!!