Alexis Paige

Well after a very eventful weekend, we are now home and all settled with the newest addition to our family...

Here's our crazy labor story:

I woke up Saturday morning at around 7 am and started having a few contractions but didn't think much of it. I had worked my three 12 hours shifts Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so I started getting things done around the house that I'd put off all week. I cleaned and vacuumed the whole house, did all of the laundry, rearranged the baby's room a couple times, and made James some french toast(He had been golfing that morning). I started having regular contractions every 10 minutes at about 9 am but still didn't think much of it because they weren't getting any closer together so I ran some more errands and got some grocery shopping done. I had regular contractions for about 5 hours and then they seemed to slow down to about every 20 minutes for a few hours. Later in the evening though I had a couple really strong contractions and I started wondering if I should call the doctor, but they still weren't 5 minutes apart. Finally around about 8 pm I called the doctor and told her I was having a hard time counting the contractions because they were different intensities and not necessarily very regular. She told me it was up to me to decide if I should go in or not since they weren't 5 minutes apart. I decided it wouldn't hurt to go in (and I figured after a day of contractions I hopefully had progressed enough to not be sent home) so we got to the hospital about 8:30pm. The nurse was taking her time checking me in because I wasn't having any intense contractions and wasn't in any pain. However, everything changed once she checked me and discovered I was dilated to a 7! She hurried and left the room to go and find someone to call Anesthesia immediately to come start my epidural, and then a bunch of nurses scrambled around to get everything ready. They offered me a wheelchair to go to the delivery room, but I felt fine and just walked there, which also seemed to surprise the nurses that I was a 7 and I was up walking around just fine. We had to wait about an hour for the midwife to come break my water, but after they broke my water everything happened pretty quickly. I only had to push for about 15 minutes, and then Alexis Paige was born at 12:06 am! James also was able to be the one to deliver her, which was such an amazing experience! He did such a great job! And of course, the nurses kept telling me I better make it to the hospital a lot sooner with the next one, or James might be delivering our next baby at home!

We took one last picture of the belly on the way out the door...

The delivery room...

To see the pictures taken at the hospital, go to http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/hospitals/5774/frame_test.asp?URLID=0279491222