Introducing.. Coleman Dunn!

He's here! And OMG I am so completely and utterly in love. Cole arrived early Friday morning 4/25/14.

I always enjoyed reading birth stories of my favorite bloggers, so I thought I would share the condensed version of mine. It was such a hard, yet amazing experience.

At exactly 41 weeks (Thursday) my water broke around 2 pm and I started having contractions right away. This was exciting because I had no contractions or anything before that... We had just had an NST that morning and the tech even said I wasn't contracting. We even had set a date for an induction that morning!

I was really surprised that the contractions came on SO fast and hard. They went from about 30 sec and 10 minutes apart to 1 min and 1-3 minutes apart in 2 hours. I labored on the birthing ball during the time and Matt was at work finishing up some things. Once he got home we really were contemplating whether or not to go to the hospital - I had always planned to labor at home as long as possible. But the contractions were so long and close together and had been for at least an hour, so we left for the hospital around 5.

By the time we got there, I was shaking and could not talk or walk through the contractions and we were admitted immediately, I was 4 cm. I wanted to wait on the epidural, so I got into the birthing tub. It helped me relax in between contractions, but since they were so close together I didn't get much relief. I decided it was time to get the epidural at 7 pm.

They checked me immediately after getting the epidural and I was 7 cm! Woohoo! I was able to relax and get some rest and was complete at midnight.

The hardest part of everything was the pushing. They turned the epidural way down and I could feel everything for pushing.. It was intense and painful but I'm glad I could feel it all - because pushing took 4 hours!!!  It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It's true what they say.. It was like running a marathon. But finally, he came into the world at 6:27 AM on Friday morning and it was the best moment of my life!! He was 8 lbs 6 oz.


Here are some pictures!

 

 

I'll post pictures of the nursery very soon! I still have a couple last minute things to do to it :) But for now, I'm spending every waking moment I can snuggling this little guy.. I'm so obsessed!