Announcing!

Dawson Kenneth Rice was born at 12:42 a.m. on Monday, April 28th. He weighed a healthy 8 pounds, 12 ounces and was 21 1/2 inches long. He is my heaviest and longest baby. Today he was discharged at 8 pounds, 3 ounces, which is still heavier than either of my other boys were at birth.

I am grateful to write that I went into labor on my own so I did not have to be induced. I am very thankful for that! I had my first strong contraction around 10:30 or so (I didn't think to look at the clock.) and afterwards I saw I was spotting. That was the sign that helped me know this was the real thing. I told Jason to get ready to go to the hospital and I jumped in the shower. I got out and started asking my mom and Jason to collect certain items, etc. and got ready to go in. Right before we left I got a really strong contraction I had to breathe through. We got in the van and sped (literally) down the road. I actually told Jason he could slow down a little so he didn't kill us trying to get there. My contractions were coming about 7 to 8 min. apart with little spikes in between. We arrived at the hospital at about 11:30. Since they already knew I had precipitous labor they made a call to the dr. on call to come in and one of the nurses took me to my LDR room to get changed. Right before we arrived at the hospital I made the comment to Jason that it would be nice if they checked me and I was 8 cm. Well, the nurse checked me and I was at 8 cm. I couldn't believe it. The dr. arrived shortly thereafter and at her check I was at 9 cm (around midnight). They told me to let them know when I felt pressure and/or needed to push. I started having back to back contractions which were hard to take. One would start, then begin letting off, only for another stronger one to follow immediately. Some of these were lasting two minutes. The nurse was wonderful and kept encouraging me and telling me to keep breathing. I kept saying short little prayers and various other comments out loud during the contractions and chewing on ice chips between them (thanks to Jason's assistance). Suddenly I felt the urge to push even though I hadn't really been feeling any pressure up to that point. The nurse got the dr. and another nurse and the pushing phase began. After my initial short push I pushed one or two more times to get the head out and once more for the body. He came out with a huge gush of liquid behind him - what relief! His Apgar scores were 9 and 9. While the nurse was checking him over he peed on her! What a comfort to know his plumbing was working right off the bat! :)

We had a nice stay in the hospital with great nurses the entire time. I really have no complaints from my hospital stay other than one not so great dinner, but hey, that's not much to be upset about! We had the option of leaving either Tuesday or this morning and we chose to stay until this morning. I am very thankful we did because it gave me another night to put Dawson in the nursery so I could get some rest between feedings. It also gave me more time to focus just on him rather than on three little boys all at once!

So now we are getting settled back in to life at home and hopefully developing a new routine in the coming weeks. I am a little nervous as to what the first night at home holds, but will just take it one step at a time.

Thanks for all your prayers! Please keep them coming as I recover and experience life with a newborn once again!