Joseph Neil :)

I can finally stop saying "Orson"! Joey was born at 9:09am this morning, weighing in at 7lbs. 11oz. and measuring 21.5 inches. He came out wide awake and ready to greet the world, and didn't go to sleep until three hours later after our first feeding :)

Labor was no fun, but I knew it wouldn't be. I won't bore you with my whole labor story but contractions started 8pm Friday night and didn't go away after I went to sleep. In fact, I woke up several times because of the contractions (a sign of true labor and not false labor), and after calling my doctor's office to confirm, I called out of work since I'd rather labor at home and not in front of other people. Contractions were both regular and irregular for most of Saturday, there were times when they would come every 10 minutes and other times when I got maybe 3 in an hour. After not having slept much Friday night, I decided to go to bed around 10pm and try and get some rest. Rest was not in the cards apparently because literally, as soon as I got into bed and started watching Dexter to fall asleep, the contractions got regular and STRONG. They were between 5 and 7 minutes apart lasting 50 seconds to 1:20 each time. Once they had been like that for an hour (following the 5-1-1 rule of contractions: 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long, for 1 hour), I called my doctor's office and got the all-clear to head to the hospital.

That was the worst drive ever. The contractions did not slow down (thankfully) and it was miserable to be strapped to a car seat during a contraction and not able to get up and move through it. We finally got to the hospital (there was a lot of traffic for 11:30pm, there had to have been some event going on in the city), got checked in and were sent to triage. We were in triage from midnight to one-ish, where they monitored the baby's heart rate and my contractions, and it was decided that I was in active labor (yay!) and could be officially admitted. I was 3-4cm dilated in triage, and shortly after I got my epidural, I was 5cm. Thanks to the epidural, Dan and I could get some sleep while my body was given time to do it's thing. In three hours, I dilated two more centimeters (at 5am I was 7cm) and we decided to break my water to see if that would speed things along to the home stretch.

Once my water broke, it really was only a few hours until it was time to start pushing. I was checked again at 8:30am and was already to 10cm and 100% effaced, time to start pushing! I pushed for about 45 minutes and at 9:09am Joey greeted the world and daddy got to cut the cord. Sinai is big on rooming in and keeping baby with mommy as much as possible, so everything that needed to be done for Joey (cleaning him, running tests, etc.) was all done in my room from a warmer. While that was going on, I got stitched up from some completely minor tearing (Joey has a big head). Thankfully the stitches will dissolve and the epidural hadn't quite worn off yet so I didn't feel any of the stitching.

After the epidural completely wore off, the nurses made sure I could walk on my own and use the bathroom and we were moved over to the Postpartum section where we'll stay until Tuesday. Most of the morning and afternoon was spent just the three of us (plus the hospital staff), and that was great. Eventually, we knew we had to share our joy with our families, so we gave them the green light to come visit (but not before I'd had a shower and some lunch!). Tomorrow will be friends visiting and as much napping as can possibly be done!