Joe's Birth Story.

It's been a whole month and I realized I still haven't written out Joe's birth story. While it wasn't nearly as eventful (read: long) as his sister's, it was an incredible day that I don't want to forget, so here goes.

(WARNING: This is super long, so scroll to the bottom if you're really just here for the pics. And gentlemen, this is a post about childbirth. I'm going to use words like "dilated" and "cervix". So if you want to continue pretending these words don't exist and that storks bring babies, I suggest you leave the blog now.)

Our September 6th started bright and early with a 7:45 a.m. appt at the OB's office. (That's bright and early in my world.) The plan was for the doctor to check me out in the morning so we had a vague idea of how much progress I'd made before my induction at lunch time. Fully expecting to hear that this kiddo was still high up and I wasn't dilated, we were surprised to learn that I was actually 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced. And when the OB said we could skip the Cervadil  (medicine to soften my cervix) and go straight to Pitocin (medicine to jumpstart contractions) when we got to the hospital, my jaw dropped all the way to the floor. The biggest smile was on this pregnant woman's face within seconds. I spent 30 hours in the hospital with Brooke before I got to start Pitocin, so I didn't even know what to think about this. Armed with this most excellent news, we headed out to go home and shower, grab our bags, and get a giant breakfast. 3 pancakes, 2 scrambled eggs, and some bacon later, this mama was ready to head to Mercy to have a baby!

We were admitted that Tuesday morning at 11:00 a.m. to the coldest room on the floor (62 degrees, yikes!) The Pitocin was started about 1:00, and we spent the afternoon just hanging out in Room 11. Even with 2 phones, a laptop, a TV, and a stack of magazines, the husband was bored by 2:00. (He didn't remember having so much downtime with Brooke, even though we had gobs more of it. Turns out he blocked out most of the 46 hours we were there before she came out.) I guess I should mention that I was contracting through all of this. They weren't bad at that point, but they were certainly getting stronger. I even told the husband I thought we might have a "Tuesday baby" after all, something I never would have guessed before that day (I had actually been expecting a late Wednesday/early Thursday baby...no reason to believe history wouldn't repeat itself.)

At 5:00, my doctor came in to check me and break my water. I was 3 cm and 75% effaced at that point, and the contractions were slowly picking up the pace. It wasn't much longer before the contractions brought tears to my eyes, something I never experienced with Brooke. While I was very uncomfortable with her labor, I had my epidural in way before the pain really started (they took pity on me since I'd been there 36 hours already.) So these painful contractions were a whole new experience! I asked for and received my epidural by about 7:00 that night. Once the medicine kicked in, it was smooth sailing for me. Between then and 10:30, the family all started trickling in, there was a power outage in the hospital, and I went from 3 to 10 cm. By 10:50, we had kicked everyone out of the room and I was starting my practices pushes!

And ten minutes later, the OB popped in to make me stop pushing. An emergency c-section down the hall forced me to wait about 45 minutes. Once the doctor came back in, I pushed for about 5-7 minutes (through about 3 contractions) and that was it. At 11:55 p.m., Joseph Carson made his very grand debut! The OB laid him on my chest, but I couldn't really see more than just his head. She let the husband tell me that we had achieved what I was afraid was impossible: we had a boy! I was in complete disbelief. The whole pregnancy I thought it was a boy, but when faced with the reality of it I just couldn't believe it. The entire time they cleaned both of us up, I just kept saying "I can't believe we had a boy!" Needless to say, I was beyond elated!

Joe weighed in at an incredible 10 lbs 2 oz, a new family record (beating out my brother by 2 oz.) He was 23 inches long and had a head circumference of 15 inches. The nurses were amazed at his size, mostly because I pushed him out so quickly and with such ease. (Even my OB was impressed by what an awesome pusher I was. I'm allowed to brag about this. 10 lbs, my friends, 10 ridiculous pounds.)

This beautiful little boy captured his parents' hearts from the minute we laid eyes on him. According to a few family members that were waiting in the waiting room, Daddy gave the gender away just with his huge goofy smile when he walked out to give them the other details (not that he wouldn't have been excited for a little girl, but a boy was super exciting!) I was thrilled to officially announce that Brooke had a brother when everyone came into the room. And we were even more excited to introduce Brooke to him the next morning. This was by far one of the best moments of my entire life, introducing the siblings. She loved him from the very start, asking lots of questions and wanting to just touch him. She pointed out each of his body parts for us, as if she was surprised that "he has nose!" So cute!

We feel so blessed to be a family of 4 now. Joe is perfect and so sweet. I can't believe how lucky I am to be the mother of these 2 fantastic little kids. Life is good :)