A Birth Story and Other Thoughts

Wow. One week. It's been one week already since our little man joined us. It's funny when I was pregnant and anxious to meet our little one, each day felt like a month. Now that Canyon is here, the days fly by. I've been at a little bit of an impasse lately, part of me has been wanting to blog, to write and record all the recent happenings to better help me remember them. On the other hand, I don't want to take the time away to do so. I want to continue to bask in the newness and miracle that is my baby and to continue to observe and cherish the girls in their new roles as "big sister". The last few days that is pretty much what I have been doing...holding...loving...watching. At night when Canyon has his fussy time I cuddle and rock him for hours marveling at his little nose, ears, feet, his little expressions and whimpers. I cherish that time and all of a sudden sleep isn't as important. I can't get over what a miracle a newborn baby is. I keep thinking back on what a crazy pregnancy it was and how very thankful I am for that experience because it brought me him and oh, how I love him.

The Birth Story

Monday morning I decided to hit the gym and then headed to a Dr. apt., for some reason that night the ball got rolling. When Dave got home the next morning I told him we were going to have a baby in the next day or two. I wasn't having consistent contractions yet, they were anywhere from 6-15 minutes apart, but they were hard. Really hard. Dave called into work, against my arguments not to, and had them page out his shift for that night. We then loaded up the girls and hit Target to buy a carseat and a few other baby necessities. I kept waiting for the contractions to get closer and they would for a little bit but then they would go back to being sporadic. We decided to head into the hospital and see what was going on just in case. I was under strict orders to come in at the first signs of labor because I needed a couple of doses of antibiotics that had to be given at least 4 hours apart before the baby came. We called Dave's dad who left work to come stay with the girls. Emma was sooo excited that the baby could be coming. Ali kept crying because she didn't want me to leave her. Poor monkey. At the hospital they hooked me up and checked me out and declared me in active labor. Yay!

The baby was coming. I was nervous, excited and did I mention nervous?

Labor was long and interesting. I had to wait over 4 hours in hard labor for an epidural.


Apparently it was a crazy night in L&D. When I finally got the epidural I had a bad reaction to it and had some problems with hypotension. Craziest feeling in the world! One minute I was sitting there chatting it up with Dave and the nurse and the next I felt like I was going to throw-up. My head started spinning and my body felt like the outside was on fire and the inside was filled with ice water. Next thing I know I'm laying down on my side and I can hear people talking to me but I can't quite put together what they are trying to say. The only thing I kept catching was, "open your eyes, can you you open your eyes?" And then it was over. Only to happen again a few minutes later. Haha, it was one crazy roller coaster ride! After oxygen, lots of fluids and some meds from the anesthesiologist I was feeling much better. The only problem was I was afraid to push the epidural button so it wore off about a half-an-hour before push time. After a quick re-dose (which only numbed the right side off my body, haha, don't ask) we were good to go.

Once I finally hit a 6 things went fast. Within the hour I was MORE than ready to push but had to wait 10 minutes for the dr. A few pushes and there was my sweet, precious, screaming baby. I looked to Dave, whose job it was to announce the gender and he was dead silent, just staring at the baby. After what seemed like an eternity he quietly announced..."It's a boy?!".

I started sobbing, overcome with love and joy and exhaustion. The doctor placed Canyon on my chest after Dave cut the cord. As Canyon screamed and screamed and the nurse scrubbed the vernix off of him I just stared at him, oblivious to everything else going on.

Here he was. My baby. What a perfect little miracle.

He has only been with us a week but we can't imagine life without him.

He has stole our hearts. He completes us and we are so thankful for him.

And yes...Dave is beyond tickled he finally got his little boy ;)