The Labor & Delivery Story

Where to start?! The past few days have felt like several weeks. It's hard to believe Eagan came into this world just this past Tuesday. We are slowly adjusting as a family. My mom is currently here, which has already been a HUGE help. We are all a bit sleep deprived (except for Breeson - which I'm thankful for!). Eagan seems to have his nights/days mixed up. I pray it won't take too long for him to make the switch. It's amazing to already see the differences between him and B, considering he's only been here a few days. But before I get into all of that, let me start from the beginning as to when he came into the world...

Monday: I was having harder contractions on/off all day; nothing regular though. The closer the evening came, I knew it was going to be that night (or was like 90% sure) but wasn't sure when. We got the bag ready that night and informed our pastor and his wife (who came to stay the night w/ B) that they could possibly be getting a call later in the night. When I went to bed, my contractions were at best 10 minutes apart, but even then they were so irregular we weren't sure what was going to happen. We finally turned out the lights around 10:30 pm.
At 11:00 I woke up to a pretty hard contraction. After having 4 of them in a row at 3 minutes a part, I woke Jamie up. I was confused b/c where did our 511 (5 min apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour) go?? We called our friends, got dressed, and waited...for what seemed like an eternity, but was only like 15 minutes at best. When they arrived, Jamie gave a couple instructions re: B and we jetted. The hospital we delivered at is only 5 minutes away. We parked the car and headed to the E.R. Between the parking garage and the door to the E.R. I had to stop at least 4 times for the contractions. When we got in the door, the lady at the desk got our names and wanted us to sign in. Right then I had a contraction and I told them (Jamie and the registrar) that I needed to push. She immediately got on the phone and told them to get a wheelchair STAT!!! I was able to manage signing in and right then a nurse arrived w/ a wheelchair. She ran (literally) w/ Jamie running right behind taking me straight to L&D. This was after midnight by now.

Tuesday: As soon as they put me in a bed, got my IV's going, they checked me and said I was dilated at a 9 and 100% effaced. I kept telling them I needed to push. They kept telling me to hold off and the Doc would be there soon. Within a few minutes he arrived, sat down and told me to start. I pushed 4 times and Eagan arrived into this world at 12:45 am. Total time of being at the hospital (walking into the ER and Eagan's arrival) was 40 minutes!

We are very thankful for a quick delivery. With B I did an epidural. But with Eagan we had set our minds to doing it naturally this time. I'm thankful God answered our prayers in allowing me to have a quick delivery - it allowed me not to even have the option this time. I thought pushing with Breeson for less than 25 minutes was pretty good - but I broke my own record by only pushing for less than 5 minutes. Looking back we realize that had I delivered at the hospital we were originally going to deliver at, we most likely would have been delivering either on the road in the parking lot. God knew what He was doing and we're thankful we changed hospitals in the end.

In all, we're doing alright. I'm still a bit sore but healing rather quickly. After birth the nurses would always ask what my pain level was on a scale of 1-10 and at most it was at a 2 or 3.
B is adjusting pretty well to his new baby brother. We are doing our best to give him extra attention as we know he needs it right now. All we can do is take it 1 day at at time.

(for complete picture tutorial, see post below...)