Bucket, born June 1, 2008

I can't believe Bucket is almost 11 weeks old and I haven't yet posted a birth story. Not only that, but I can't find the one I typed out and emailed...

Here goes. Wednesday, May 28, I had an appt. with my OB. She told me I was 3 cm dilated. That hadn't changed from the week before. The next day, we took the kids to Disneyland. I wanted to make sure we got one more trip in before the baby was born and our passes expired. I knew we wouldn't be buying new passes for a while. We walked around all day and the spotting I had been having started to increase a little.

Friday morning, I woke up with contractions. The lasted pretty much all day. They would subside for an hour or two at a time but I would also get them for 3-4 hours at a time, about every 5 minutes and strong enough that I paid attention to them. Friday night, we went to dinner at Spaghettini and I told Gama we better go to the hospital after dinner. He talked me into going home and I was actually able to sleep through the night although every time I woke to go to the bathroom, I was still having contractions.

Saturday morning, I still had them. While talking to my mom, I had to keep stopping to deal with them. She said I was crazy not to go to the hospital. I told her I was going to get ready for the day and maybe we'd all go to lunch first at least. My shower seemed to calm the contractions down. We went to lunch and I was contracting but OK. We headed to the mall next to buy shoes for Junior. While we were there, they started getting stronger and when I went to the bathroom, the spotting looked more like bleeding. I called the OB and got Dr. K because my doctor, Dr. A was not on call that weekend. He said to go get checked out.

My mom took the 3 boys home with her and we got to the hospital around 5 or 5:30. The nurses checked me and I was 4-5 cm. and -3 station. They called Dr. K and he said to keep me, based on the fact that I was almost 2cm further along than 3 days before and also that this was my fourth and I live 30 min. from the hospital. For the next 5 hours, I was monitored, walked around, etc. He got there at 10:30 and I was 6 cm. and -1 station. He broke my water and the very next contraction had me calling for the epidural LOL

About 90 minutes after having my water broken, he checked again and I was at 10! He told the nurse to let me "labor down" for 30 minutes and he left the room. About 10 minutes later, I started feeling a ton of pressure down there and the nurse said I could push against it if I wanted to and that it might make me feel better. It did! I pushed for about 10 minutes and they started seeing more and more of his head. They gave me the mirror to see for myself. I pushed for about another 5 minutes and one of the nurses said she better go get the doctor. She walked out the door and the other nurse went to the other side of the room to do something. Suddenly, I yelled out, "I feel his head moving! I think it is coming out!" She said, "It's OK!" and in one pop, there was his head LOL As the nurses came towards me and Dr. K walked into the room, I said, "He is coming!" and he said it was OK to push. As they got to me and grabbed his head, the rest of him popped out quickly LOL It hurt this time. I had the epidural but it must have been wearing off because I felt a lot. But it was so fast. I yelled OW OW OW OW OW!!! and then it was done!

They put him on my chest and covered us with my gown and the blanket and I just hugged him and kissed him and rubbed his back. They rubbed him down a little bit and let us hang out for a while before weighing him and stuff. He came into the world at 7 lb. 6 oz. and 20 inches. He is just so cute and has gotten cuter and cuter each and everyday. There is nothing like having a brand new baby look up at you with those sweet curious eyes!