The baby has arrived!!!

We named him Mase B. He was born on August 12th at 12:04 am. He weighes 7 lbs 2 ounces and is 19 inches long. He’s got black hair and loves his binky (Yay! Ikey hated the binky!). We are ABSOLUTELY in love!!

Here are all the gory details of the birth! If you don’t want to read, just scroll down for some pictures! I won’t be offended.

For about three weeks I have had really strong contractions on and off. It’s been really emotional feeling like that was the day only to have them stop over and over. On Monday (August 10th) I had an appointment where I was going to have my membranes stripped (translation: really terrible exam that gets things going). The midwife told me that they were totally swamped at the hospital and couldn’t do it! I was really disappointed. To put the icing on the cake, my cousin went into labor that day and delivered, which made me want to be there even more! The midwife had told me to call the next day (August 11th) and see if it had died down at the hospital and to see if they would strip me that day. I called at 8 am and she said that I could! After the appointment I went and finished the school shopping! When I got home I felt crampy but no contractions. I needed to get this show on the road! Sooooooo…I mowed our lawn! All the neighbors kept coming out and offering to help me, but I just told them this was self imposed torture. I started contracting during and as soon as I was done, I told Ben that we needed to walk more. So we went to run errands. We went to the post office, shoe shopping, we returned clothes that I had bought that didn’t fit, and got some lumber from Home Depot for projects.

At this point it is 4:30 pm. The contractions are coming on strong. My sweet sister came to my house and took over and we headed over to the hospital. They put us in an evaluation room to see if you will change over time. When I got there I was a 4, which is still no change from my appointment that morning, but they can see the contractions are consistent. They said, walk around for an hour and we’ll see. I was so disappointed at this point because my body was acting different than it usually does. It usually takes a miracle to get the hospital in time :) . After that hour, I had dilated a ½ cm. She took pity on my soul and admitted me. I was so tired at this point and opted to get an epidural. They then broke my water. Now it is 8 pm. I was comfortable and able to sleep a little bit. My mom and Ben just hung out. They checked me at 10 pm and I was only a 5. By 11:45 pm, I was only a 5 ½. I got REALLY discouraged and just cried. I didn’t want to do this all night. About 11:55 pm I started feeling really icky. I just felt awful. I started shaking really bad and could feel the contractions. The nurse came in and decided to check me since I said “something wasn’t right”. She suddenly said, Oh my goodness! You are 10 cm. Let’s get the midwife! The midwife had gone into a break room and had just lain down to take a nap (Remember 10 minutes earlier I was 5 1/2? She said later that she was really confused and didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping. My nurse was awesome and already had the room set up for delivery (luckily). By 12:02 am I was ready to push. I pushed once and he flew out at 12:04 am, 19 minutes from 5 cm to in our arms! He is TINY compared to my other boys so it was pretty easy!

We are so in love! He does have a nice set of lungs and lets us know what he likes or not! We are so happy!!