Our Prince Has Arrived....

Noah Christopher Thomas was born July 21, 2008 at 6:47 p.m., and weighing in at a whopping 9lbs. 8oz., and 21.5 inches long! And yes, I am still wondering how he possibly fit in my belly! It was such an amazing experience. I knew I loved this baby, but I had no clue how awesome being a "mommy" was going to be.

We went in Sunday, July 20 at midnight and got all of my IV's and other gadgets that had to be hooked up. As soon as I got there and saw my open back gown...my stomach started knotting up...it was really time! They started my pitocin really low and gradually pushed it up a little throught out the rest of the night. By the time 5:00 a.m. came, I had been having at least 3 contractions every 10 minutes. At first they weren't painful, just tightening...but come about 3:00 a.m. that morning....I was wanting to throw anything in reach at Chris while he was snoozing away on the couch over there. The pain was in my lower back and I thought I was dying. When the nurse came in about 5:30 a.m., I just knew that I was already at 8 centimeters and they were going to tell me to start pushing......Yeah Right!! I was only about 3 cm's! We decided to try some pain medication before the epidural (I was trying not to be too big of a whimp) and I can't remember exactly what they gave me, but before she was walking out the room, I couldn't see straight......whatever it was...it made me sleepy. My family had a lot of fun with it...I would be sitting straight up in my bed talking and all of a sudden, I would just go to sleep...then when I would wake up...EVERYONE would be staring at me and laughing! Needless to say, that medication WAS NOT doing the trick....I had already decided that Noah was going to be an only child! About 10:00 a.m., I decided that I didn't care that I was being a whimp or not, it was time for the epidural....CALL IN THE DOC!! This is where my worst fear with childbirth came from and it was by far the easiest! It was easier than putting in my IV! There was no pain at all, except for the contraction that was going on while he was doing it! He did a great job! After that, I was good to go and actually thinking about having a few more kids. Now you know I must have been feeling better! It was a breeze after that. The only problem I had was that I absolutely couldn't move anything below my waist. I thought it was funny! Everytime they came in to check me they would have to move my legs and then when they were done, I'd have to get Chris to come move them back for me... I think the nurses would forget about putting them back down. For a while there, every hour we would be another cm along, but then about 1 or 2 we slowed down. I just rememeber at 4:30 p.m. the nurses came in and said...."Everybody out, we're ready to start pushing and have a baby!!" Woo hoo I was so excited, and it was like a whirwind after that. It really still don't feel like I pushed for 2 hours, I guess time really does fly when you're having fun right! (If you want to call that fun) I had wonderful nurses and coaches. If it wasn't for my sweet nurses, I know I would've definately had to have had a C-section. They worked extremely hard. And then my other coaches consisted of....my wonderful husband (I 'm so glad he went in there with us) and all of our moms.....Glenda, Tink and Pam. And believe it or not, everyone was doing something. It's amazing how modesty goes right out the window in childbirth..but we had lots of fun! I'm so thankful they could all be a part of it somehow!

And after 2 hours of pushing and thinking that he was NEVER coming out....he did, and he was perfect. We didn't get to go home on Wednesday like we'd planned. The doctor came in that morning and said that he had a little bit of jaundice and wanted him to stay another night and see if they could get it to go down, once it starts going down we could go home. Well they gave us a courtesy room so that we wouldn't have to leave the hospital and come back and forth for feedings. The next morning we were told that it actually went up .1, so he was going to have to stay another night. By this time we were extremely tired and ready to be home...and luckily Friday morning he came in and said we were good to go and that he'd see us in 2 weeks. It was finally real, we were going home with OUR baby!

(It was hard working waiting on the little one)