What a perfect day - a must read ending!

Also posted on June 2011 board:

Birth story - with a great bonus ending!

On Sunday I started having stomach pains around 3am, woke up, and decided to hang out on the couch. They started getting pretty painful around 4:30 so I woke up DH and we started keeping a close eye on the pain and timing them because I could tell the pains were coming in waves. We timed them for over an hour and they were about 10 minutes apart so we decided to go ahead and shower, finish packing our hospital bag, and head to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 7:30 am, they hooked me all up to machines, and told me that I was 3 cm dialated and the contractions were then 4 minutes apart. They called my obgyn (who was not on call so they contacted another one) and she wanted the nurses just to monitor me to see how things progressed before actually admitting me to the hospital. They checked me a little later and I was up to 3.5 centimeters so they went ahead and delivered me. I couldnt believe it when I heard the nurse say, "looks like youre in labor" I dont know why it was so unreal but it was!

They took us to the l & d room and I think I had the best nurses ever! They knew I was GD, only 36 weeks along, and that baby was pretty small (15th percentile at the time) so they were keeping a close on him. DHs parents arrived then and MIL and DH helped me through the contractions. I knew I wanted an epid just didnt know when so I thought Id see how bad the contractions got. They checked me soon after and I was up to 4 centimeters and thats when the contractions were bad enough that I was vomiting during some of them. Thats when I decided to get the epid.

The epidural was the easier thing for me - seriously, I have had regular shots that hurt worst than that. The needle didnt hurt and I know they say you will feel burning as it goes in but I didnt feel a thing. It kicked in immediately and I couldnt even tell when I was having contractions after that unless I looked at the computer screen.

Soon after that, probably around 2:00 or 2:30 they decided to break my water. They checked me again and I was then complete and ready to go. At 3:15 I started pushing with the nurse and things went very well so she called in the doc and I started pushing with her around 4 and Grayson was born at 4:12.

He was a little guy at 5 pounds 8 ounces, 18 inches long, but everything was great. He sugar was just a little low but they gave him some formula and it was then at a great level the rest of the time. He was in the special care nursery for 5 hours and then joined us in the mother and me ward.

We came home Tuesday afternoon and things have been great....but with expected troubles with breast feeding and sleeping, and all that stuff but I wont complain!

 BONUS story ending - Ok so we obviously were NOT expecting him on Sunday since I was only 36 weeks along but once I realized I was having contractions we knew we had to go the hospital, but were also aware that they could just send me back home or tell us to wait, or whatever.......so once the nurse told us we were officially in labor we called the In-Laws. FIL asked my DH if he realized that it was DH's grandfathers bday (who past in 2006) and it was something we had both forgotten. As soon as we heard it was his grandfathers bday we knew that he was going to be born that day. DHs grandfather was very very important to him - thats why Grayson's middle name is Lee - for his grandfather and DH wears his grandfathers ring everyday. His grandfather, who he called PaPa was a POW in WW2 and was a very important person in the POW association when tons of published material in books, interviews, and did TONS of stuff for the WW2 POW association.

At a convention center PaPa once played a song for everyone and told them all it was his favorite and in the lyrics it said "I believe in angels" (https://www.stalagluft4.org/Leonard%20Rose.htm ) So....last Christmas one of my gifts to him was a painting I made and it says "I believe in angels" and I painted on all of his grandfathers awards, ribbons, POW camp flag, the plane he flew, etc. Ok, so anyway - when we got to the l&d room we noticed right away that every nurse had on the same scrubs and they had little angels on them and hearts and in the hearts were the words "I believe in angels". It was just too amazing to even be true! We all cried like babies! In one of the photos at the link below you will see a photo of the ring DH rings every day, that belonged to his grandfather. It was an amazing day!

Photos https://www.bellababyphotography.com/baby/login   password: 0522grayson