He's Here!

Introducing.....

Colton James Woodland!

Born : May 1st 2012 at 10:47AM

7lbs 15oz

20in 

April 30th I had my 38 week appointment. We were told at the appointment that I was 4cm dilated and baby was in a low position. The doctor and I discussed my options and decided that if Colton did not make his appearance in the next week I would go in for a scheduled induction at 39 weeks on May 7th.

In the last 4 weeks leading up to this appointment I as getting roughly 2-3 hours of sleep a night due to extreme upper abdominal discomfort. Dr Johnson said this was due to him kicking and pushing at the top of my uterus which caused my stomach muscles to separate. (Sounds pleasant right?) One doctor gave me Ambien to try. I'm not sure if any of you have ever taken Ambien, but it can make you do/say/think some pretty weird stuff. I woke up about an hour after taking the Ambien in pain from contractions and had an hour and a half of interaction with Paul that I do not remember. I would not have believed the things he told me had he not recorded it and played it for me this next morning. Let's just say I spent a good portion of the time cursing Lady GaGa for the pain I was in. 

Back to April 30th. After my appointment I called home to my mom who was waiting for word regarding the appointment. She had a ticket on a flight to arrive at 1:15 that day. We discussed it and decided that her original plan was for her to come a week before my due date anyways so it was best that she get on the plane and come. 

Shortly after my appointment I started experiencing a lot of cramping. Unusual, really uncomfortable cramping. We picked up my mom and went on with our day. 

Paul went to our friend's Paige & Patrick's to help out with the redesign of their backyard and my mom and I joined later in the evening for dinner. At around 7pm I started to wonder if I was "leaking". Very odd sensation for a first time mom, I'm still not sure that what I was feeling was truly "leaking", though I suppose we will never know. 

We headed home at around 9PM and Paul and I decided to walk to the supermarket across the street to buy some oranges. They are amazing oranges that were at on sale for .59 cents a pound. Great deal =) I pushed myself and made it a very brisk walk, I was pretty winded by the time we made it back home. After about 20 minutes of bouncing on the exercise ball (can you tell I wanted this baby out?) I decided I should lay down and see if I could time any contractions. I got into bed and pulled out my phone with my nifty contraction timing app (yes...there IS an app for timing your contractions) and waited. Not 5 minutes later a contraction started and I pushed the button to start timing. You can imagine my surprise when 5 seconds later I felt a "POP!" and then a big "GUSH!". I sat up in bed and said "Holy crap! I think my water broke!" Poor Paul was almost asleep next to me and he jumped out of bed after me. So our night began, hooray! I was finally officially in labor! L&D could not send me home now! 

I ran into my mom's bedroom and woke her up and we all started running around the house grabbing last minute items. By 10:45 we were ready to go. We jumped in the car, made phone calls to our family and we were on our way! 

We arrived at the hospital at 11:00 and I went straight into Triage. My plan all along was to "see how labor went" and "decide if I wanted an epidural once I was experiencing it". Well..let me tell you. I'm not sure if it's because my contractions went from nothing to every 2-3 minutes so quickly...or if it was because he was so low down from the very beginning, but I was begging for an epidural before we even parked the car. 

After being situated in my room, spending some quality time in a hot shower, and LOTS of time BREATHING....I finally got my epidural at 1:30AM. Sweet bliss! Holy moly! I went from blinded by pain one minute to blissfully content and comfortable the next. The nurses encouraged us all to get some rest...we tried, but we pretty much failed. 

At 9:45 the nurse checked me and confirmed that I was 10cm dilated and 100% effaced. Baby was WAY low down and we were ready to push! I started pushing at 10:15 (after waiting for the epidural to wear off a bit). After 5 pushes the nurse said "Okay, we need to page the doctor, this baby is on his way!" Wow, okay we thought. This is exciting... Maybe I'll only push for an hour or so...2 more pushes and the nurse says "Okay...we need to page the doctor again...this baby is coming VERY soon. How about we put your legs down!" Oh wow!!! Baby is coming! One more push and the nurse pages again and asks for ANY doctor to come, and to come fast. The on call doctor came in and rushed into her protective clothing, just in time for Dr Johnson to run into the room (he sprinted the whole way from the clinic) he threw on some gloves and stepped up to the plate! 2 pushes later Colton James Woodland made a splashing appearance into this world! 

Splashing appearance you may ask? What does she mean by a splashing appearance? Well, usually when a baby is delivered the amniotic fluid gushes out onto the bed or the floor (they have towels and absorbent things all over the place) however, whether he just came out fast...or whether it was his position when he came out, ALL the amniotic fluid came spraying up into my face....Paul on the left and the nurse on my right both jump back from the bed to avoid the spray and poor numb legs me, gets sprayed alllll over. GROSS!!!! But then... I had a warm, soft, squishy, beautiful crying baby on my chest and I couldn't have cared less about the water show. 

We stayed in the hospital that night and we were discharged the next evening. St Vincent's was a great place to have a baby, and I would go back in a heartbeat. Our friend's Paige, Patrick, Anderson, Katie, Derek, Van & Weston came to visit and it was great to see everybody! Both Paige & Katie took awesome pictures of all of us in the hospital. Thank you so much!