Being that our little man is almost a month old(!!!) we figured it’s about time we shared his birth story! It’s a long post, so feel free to just skip to the photos if you aren’t interested in all the details!

This whole pregnancy I had one goal – make it through my wedding season before having Ethan! With that in mind, I took it pretty easy those last 2 months. At my 37 week appointment I wasn’t even 1cm dilated (which was great news at the time because it meant I should be able to photograph that last wedding)! Needless to say, the day after I shot my last wedding at 38 weeks pregnant, I was excited to start walking around the neighborhood again! Tuesday after the wedding (November 8th) I had contractions every 5-8 minutes apart that lasted about a minute each and they went on for an hour – I thought that was it, I called the doctor on call and she said once they were consistently 5 minutes apart to come into the hospital…but then they completely stopped shortly after. This was already different than my experience with Emily’s birth…since I had a high leak water break with her, they ended up having to induce me to get things going, so I didn’t have to time contractions or know when to go to the hospital. Thursday, November 10th I had my 38 week appointment and to my surprise I was 4 cm dilated!! I couldn’t believe it! But, his heart rate was lower than it had been in the past so they sent me across the street to the hospital to monitor his heart rate. Thankfully, everything looked good so they sent me home! (Thank goodness! I was not ready or prepared to stay)! That night I had more contractions that ended up stopping again after an hour or so, and Saturday night, (November 12th) I had contractions every 5-7 minutes for 5 hours! But once again they didn’t progress or get stronger over those 5 hours and eventually stopped. At this point I was starting to get frustrated as you can imagine…that was 3 times now that we thought it was “go time” but God kept saying not yet.

Sunday afternoon, Mike and my mom convinced me that we should probably go to the hospital just to get check and make sure everything was okay since I had been having these contractions on and off. I didn’t want to go, assuming they were just going to tell me to go home, but we went anyway. Once again to my surprise, I was now 5cm and 70% effaced! They wanted to check me again in 2 hours to see if I’d progress any (which I didn’t think was possible since I wasn’t having contractions at the time). Instead of just sitting in triage for 2 hours, we asked if we could leave to go out to dinner for potentially one last date night. They loved the idea and off we went to Fat Heads for wings and then the Milkshake Factory for dessert (best decision we could’ve made)! We got back to the hospital again, and somehow I was 6cm and they said it was time to admit me. I am still in shock at this point that this was all happening, and thankful that I listened to Mike and my mom!

They gave me the option of starting me on pitocin (which I was trying to avoid if at all possible with this pregnancy), breaking my water, or seeing if I would progress anymore on my own. We chose to wait 2 more hours to see if I would progress naturally. Two hours came and went and although I was now 90% effaced, I was still only 6cm dilated so I made the decision to have them break my water. Right after they broke my water, they said things were going to progress quickly from here so if I wanted an epidural I needed to get it now, so it wasn’t long before we called anesthesia to get that started. With my not so good epidural experience with Em’s birth, I was hesitant, but they assured me that I would have a senior attending perform the epidural instead of a resident like last time. That put me at ease and after pushing without an epidural with Emily, I was really looking forward to seeing what this whole normal epidural was all about. I got it and it was amazing. I asked for only half the dosage at first because I was still nervous about everything, but it wasn’t long before I asked them to up it to the normal dosage. One and a half hours passed after them breaking my water and I was 10cm and ready to push (they said it would happen fast and boy were they right)! I pushed for just over an hour (I pushed for over 2 hours with Em) and there he was…healthy, beautiful and screaming like crazy! Born November 14th at 4:10am weighing 7lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. The overwhelming peace and joy that comes over you after you deliver a baby and they place him on your chest is remarkable – there are truly no words for it. And I can’t even begin to explain how amazing and supportive Mike was for both of my deliveries! I am so thankful to have had him by my side encouraging me and supporting me! My labor, delivery and recovery went so much better this time which was such a relief! Later that afternoon my dad brought Emily in to see us and meet her baby brother (see the video on Facebook) and just like that we became a family of four!

We are still praising God for another beautiful miracle and for a safe and healthy delivery!

All the hugs!

Some pictures from our first couple of days at home…

This photo was not prompted at all – the girl loves Daniel Tiger and loves “reading” to him!

And some iphone pictures…