Happy As We Go: Our Prompt Sucker Baby

It was 11:59 p.m. on January 22nd, I looked over at John and told him that I wish labor would just start already!

One minute later, my water broke.

We were shocked and laughing at how prompt this boy was. It was his due date and he was going to come. John went and made Colby a fun-fetti birthday cake because that's what we always have on our birthdays.

I sat in the bath as the contractions became stronger and closer together. Everyone was right...you know when it's the real deal.

At 2:00 a.m. we checked into the hospital, which fortunately didn't take too long (I just said this to John and he goes, "YES IT DID! You didn't do any of it, I did all of it") because by this point I felt like I was in a movie with how much water was drizzling down my legs.

I was taken up to the room and hooked up to an iv and told to get some sleep. I made the mistake of cleaning all day and tiring myself out for labor even though I woke up on the 22nd thinking he was going to come on his due date. At least I did take a nap that day. That night we had our last birthing class too.

John cracks me up. He took this picture of the contraction levels and Colby's heart rate.

It was pretty difficult for me to get any sleep since the contractions continued to get stronger. At 6 a.m. another nurse, Kristine, came on shift and we loved her!

She helped me focus on breathing and controlling the pain, rather than letting the pain control me. It helped a lot! Can I just say, throwing up is not fun when you're in the middle of a contraction? Holy cow.

At 7 a.m. I was a dilated to a 5 and ready for the epidural. After that, I was able to relax and Colby's heartbeat went back up to normal. Finally, I fell asleep for awhile. By the way, John was so great! He just held my hand when I wanted it held and gave me constant encouragement. I think he had some sympathy pain because he didn't feel well that morning and his legs and arms went numb when I was pushing.

Now we waited....waited...and waited....

By noon I was dilated to 8 cm...

At 3:00 p.m. I hadn't progressed..but Kristine had me go ahead and start pushing to see if things would progress.

I pushed for 2 hours straight, Colby was vacuumed 3 times, had the forceps used once, and finally...

Fresh new born

our beautiful, 8 lb 21 in, sucker baby arrived! Why is he a sucker baby? Well, according to my brother Brian, any baby that is cute and sleeps well, sucks you into having another baby in the future and that is sure Colby. He is a great sleeper, and happy baby.

He's already such a helpful and wonderful daddy to Colby

Dr. Evans thinks I'm crazy for not doing a c-section and as soon as he came into the room to deliver , he asked me if I ran cross country or grew up on a farm. He basically said that only a cross country runner would choose to not hop in the car and be driven to the finish line, instead I ran 10 more miles to the end. After all the pushing I had already done, I didn't want to have a c-section and I knew that even though it was going to be really hard, that I could do it and I did.