Happy Birthday

On the morning of December 21, 2008 I woke up to some mild contractions. I didn’t think too much about it and went on with my usual plans. Evan, Grady, and I went out and finished up our Christmas shopping, we wrapped presents, and played together. My contractions kept going, but weren’t too painful. I wasn’t convinced this was it. When Grady went down for his nap I decided to take a nap too, just in case I ended up really going into labor that night. After I got up from my nap, I decided to call my mom. She was supposed to come over in the morning, but I was worried about going into real labor that night and having to drop Grady off in the middle of the night. She was happy to hear from me and said she would be over in a few hours. Now I was sure with my mother making the long trek over that I wouldn’t really go into labor for days. My mother arrived at around 4:30 PM and my contractions were starting to be more painful. I was starting to think maybe this was it. I really wanted to make until 7:30 when Grady went to bed, but around 6:30 my contractions were starting to get closer together and hard to walk through. So I had Evan call labor and delivery and they said to bring me in. After kissing Grady goodbye I got into the car and just as we were pulling out of the driveway my water broke. After that the contractions started to come one after another as we raced to the hospital. As soon as we arrived they checked me and I was 9.5 cm dilated and almost ready to push. I asked them if the baby was in the right position and they said it was head down. Evan explained that our first son was face up, so they checked again and sure enough this one was face up too. I pushed for about 15 minutes, but the baby’s heartbeat was all over the place. At that point they suggested another c-section. I had wanted to have a vbac, but at that point I knew that the most important thing was to have a healthy baby. As soon as they put in the spinal the pain started to melt away and I was able to relax and get ready to meet my baby. I remember squeezing Evan’s hand and saying “we finally get to find out if it is a boy or a girl.” Minutes later they were holding him up and saying “It’s a boy.” I was so excited to finally meet my son Ryland.