We welcomed Owen Branch at 2:20am on December 3, 2010. He weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces and he was 21 inches long. We were supposed to be induced the morning of December 3rd...Beau was hoping for me to go into labor so we would have a story...turns out he got what he wished for. Here is the story (forgive its length)....
On Thursday December 2nd, I started having contractions at about 4am. I didn't think much of it, they were not very close together and I didn't tell Beau because every time he thought I MIGHT be going into labor he got so excited, so I didn't want to get his hopes up. Although he did notice that something was up, so he was on to me...I told him that they were too far apart so he wouldn't worry or get too excited. I had lunch with my friend Sarah and I noticed they were getting closer together, Sarah noticed something was wrong but I lied and said I was fine, just uncomfortable. When I got home from lunch Beau noticed that I seemed to be having the contractions closer together, so I finally started to time the contractions...they were about 7 minutes apart but then quickly moved to 5 minutes apart. We decided I would call the hospital and they directed me to call my doctor. My doctor's office said to go up to the hospital so we left about 3:30pm. We went up there and they hooked me and checked dilation, I was still just dilated to a 3 which was the same as what I was at on Monday's doctor appointment, so no progress yet. My doctor happened to be there and said that I could hang out all night, see what happens and still get induced in the morning if no progress OR I could go home...and they would give me a shot for the labor pains and then I could come back for induction in the morning if nothing happens. Who wants to hang out at the hospital all night? Plus we had family coming in town for the induction and they were all planning to eat dinner at our house. I said let's go home...so they gave me a shot of morphine and sent me on my way about 5:15pm. They said it would take about 30 minutes for the shot to take effect, but even after being home it didn't seem to help. The house was filled with my parents, my grandparents, Beau's mom and aunt. So Beau got everyone set with the baked potato bar he had already prepared, and of course he kept checking on me. Everyone seemed excited but I had to have Beau keep me isolated because the contractions were getting worse and closer together. Finally I told Beau, that the contractions were about 2 1/2 minutes apart, so it's time to go back to the hospital. We signed in at 8pm and they rushed me through lots of signing of papers which they finally let Beau take over signing since I was dealing with labor. They got me hooked up and checked me, I was dilated to a 4. So they got me my epidural right away...unfortunately it only worked on my right side so they kept having to mess with it, meanwhile I was checked and dilated to a 6 then to a 10...when they finally got the epidural to work (a little too well). I was at a 10 at about 11:00pm but my water still hadn't broke. My water broke a bit later but he was a little farther up so they waited a bit....I started pushing at about 1:15am and he came by 2:20am. Such a sweet little guy....he did swallow a little fluid and had a little bit of a temperature so he didn't get to stay very long with me, Beau escorted him to the nursery and they put him on some oxygen. He had to be under oxygen for about 7 hours and I finally got to reunite with him about 11:30am. We are so happy and we are very much in love with him.
We are all good and we are very glad to be home in our comfort zone.
Check out some pictures of our bundle of joy some from the hospital and some from home....we think he is pretty special....
