Love me a Thomas Isaac.

Thomas was born August 7th at 9:35 am.  I woke up around 2:00 am with a really painful cramp in my stomach.  Thinking nothing of it, I went to the bathroom (a frequent night time activity).  I believe that this was when my water broke as it was not a normal bathroom experience (I'll leave it at that.)  I went back to bed and felt another painful stomach cramp.  This time Jake turned over and asked if I was ok.  I told him, "I think I'm in labor.  I think my water just broke."  He now teases me about how casual I was when I told him.  He jumped out of bed and began frantically packing things.  I called the midwife, and she told me to take a shower and eat a snack before heading over to the hospital.  I was feeling pretty regular contractions at this point and they were painful enough that I would have to hold on to something and concentrate on breathing, so the shower was a no-go.  We finally got everything ready and headed out the door.

We arrived at the hospital around 3:15 and they wheeled me across the hospital to the delivery room.  Apparently, we came in the wrong door.  I was already dilated 4 cm, and they asked if I wanted an epidural.  I was afraid of getting one, so I said I would wait.  After a few more contractions, I mustered up enough courage (and pain) to ask for the epidural.  I was surprised to find that it hurt a lot less than putting in the IV had hurt.  It helped a lot, and I was finally able to calm down and semi-relax.

The contractions continued to get worse, despite the epidural.  After talking to other women who've given birth, I'm convinced that they gave me a very weak epidural!  It hurt so bad that I asked the nurse if there was anything we could do.  She said that it could help to push a little bit, because the baby was probably in a bad position and pushing could lower him down where it wouldn't hurt so much.  We began to work on pushing and she called the midwife.  (The midwife seemed to think that it would be around 8-9 PM before the baby would be born.  She took off after checking me the first time and didn't seem to want to come back.)  When the midwife finally arrived to check me again, she was surprised at how far I'd progressed in so little time, and we got down to business.  Thomas arrived within an hour of pushing.

They handed him to me, and I thought he was beautiful.  Then they took him from me and started sewing me back up, claiming that the epidural would numb me enough for it not to hurt.  The epidural was weak, and I could feel more than I wanted to--ouch.  Watching them bathe and measure my little baby helped to distract me.  He weighed 8lbs, 1 oz and was 20 inches long.  He had a crinkle in his right ear and a cone shaped head with short, dark hair.  The ear crinkle has since unfolded and gone away along with the cone head.  He still has the dark hair.

Labor is bad...really bad.  I have no desire to go through that again--ever.  However, I do love my baby boy.  Maybe he'll end up with a baby brother or sister eventually :)