So in love

At the last posting, we thought Shaun would be here via c-section on Wednesday morning.  Little did we know, he had other plans. I began my maternity leave the week before to rest up and finish preparing for his arrival. The 16th was an especially trying day. I had sporadic contractions averaging about 20 minutes apart all day.  Darren had gone to work to finish up on a project so he could be totally devoted to being with us once Shaun got here.  Around 5pm the contractions ramped up, getting to be about 10 minutes apart.  At 7pm they were around 7-8 minutes apart, and I told Darren to get home and we'd probably go to the hospital because I couldn't take the pain. Then at 7:40, my water broke. 

Once we got to the hospital, they performed their paper strip test to confirm whether my water actually broke or if it was just me wetting myself.  After the nurse insisted it was the latter, no matter what I said, I was about to strangle her.  She performed another test that proved my water did in fact rupture. However, I was still only dilated 1 cm, so our doctor instructed them to get me prepared for surgery and he'd be in around 11pm that night, instead of making me suffer until the morning.

Everything went into fast forward at this point.  They wheeled me into pre-op and whisked Darren away to get ready.  I got my local anesthesia shot, followed by the spinal, and then I was feeling pretty good, aside from shivering to death.  The team wrapped me in heated blankets, and soon Darren came in dressed in scrubs.  Before it really even registered what was happening, doc said, "Here comes baby!" and Shaun was out!  Darren got to see him and cut the umbilical cord and watch them clean him up, and then they brought him to me to put on my chest.  This perfect, wrinkly, screaming little guy.

While doc finished stitching me up, Darren went with Shaun to recovery and I soon followed.  They monitored me there for about an hour or two, and then took us to our temporary room.  We got a Pineapple Suite at Baptist, but it wouldn't be ready until the following morning.  So around 3am family came in to meet the little man, and then left us to attempt to rest until the morning. Darren "slept" on one of those tiny chairs made for people as short as me.  Around 8am, we got to move to our permanent room.  Between constant monitoring, painful trips to the bathroom, and just loving on our new addition, the rest of the stay was a delirious blur.  We were released on Friday, February 19 and ever since we've been trying to figure this whole thing out. :)

The bottom line is, we've got a beautiful little baby boy and we're over the moon.  Thanks for following our journey so far, and stay tuned!