Adding to our Family

At 19 weeks, we had our appointment to find out the gender. We were excited to find out before we went home to Arizona so we could tell family.

At the appointment, they looked at the baby, who was growing well, and we found out that we were having a boy. And it was pretty obvious. It was very difficult holding it in that it was a boy until Thanksgiving day, but I'm glad that we were able to do everyone at one time.

December we returned to the west for my sister's wedding, and then Christmas in Arizona. It was a little difficult while pregnant, but I enjoyed my time with family. February, we purchased a house and gave up renting for the time being (and hopefully forever). Thankfully we had a month to move, because I was not able to get hardly anything done.

We started in our new ward March 11, and I miss our 3rd ward friends, but I'm enjoying getting to know the new ward members.

My parents came out the end of March and beginning of April, expecting Baby Boy would get here early like his sister. But nope, he was a stubborn little guy. I was at 1 cm dilated for about a month, and her stripping my membranes did nothing. We needed him to get here while my mom was still in town, so we went in on the night of April 10th to get induced.

We got to the hospital at 10pm. We got checked in and then brought up to the labor and delivery room. I was a given a pill at around midnight to start the cervix thinning and dilating. And within 30 minutes, I was having very consistent contractions. Too consistent for the nurse, because she came in and gave me a shot to slow them down.

We discussed what we wanted to name him, and actually decided before he arrived.

I regret not trying to sleep at the beginning of labor. I played on my phone while Jason tried to sleep. Occasionally I went to use the bathroom. From midnight to 4:30am, the contractions weren't terrible. By 6am, I was definitely feeling them, and I decided I wanted the epidural then, but I waited until 6:30 before we got the nurse to start up with the epidural stuff. The anesthesiologist came in at almost 7:30, and the contractions were getting very unpleasant and hard to breathe through. Once the epidural was set, though, I was immediately able to relax, and I started to doze. By about 7:45 am, my OBGYN came in to check and see how things were going and break my water. I moved a leg so she could do that, and it gushed itself. The nurse told me to let them know if it felt like I needed to poop. I tried to rest some more, but within 10 - 20 minutes, I felt a very intense pain in my vagina. I was exhausted and it didn't feel like I needed to poop, but it was crazy painful, so I had J call the nurse.

She came in, gave me a little more epidural juice and moved to check on things and everything immediately went into motion because he finally decided he wanted to get here, and now. I am pretty sure the epidural had not fully kicked in, which is why I felt the pain. The doctor came in and I started pushing. With just 15 - 30 minutes of pushing, Baby Ellis Michael arrived.

I felt so much relief knowing that I was done with the hard part of labor. I did get a second degree tear, sadly, and I'll be honest that healing this time around did not go as easily, and I'm still a little nervous that something didn't heal right and it will be hard to get pregnant again.

But we were joined by an adorable little boy.