Our New Arrival

I know it's been almost a month now since Micah was born, but I decided to start at the beginning. That way I can share details of the last few weeks and the billions of photos I took won't go to waste!


Prelabor
I hate in the movies how pregnant women always seem to just be perfect one minute and then all of a sudden they know "it's time" and you see them rushing to the hospital. If only it were that fast and easy! Two weeks before Micah was born, I started prelabor or 'prodromal' labor. I had never heard of this before, but let me just say it was really annoying haha. I went to the hospital after having regular contractions for a few hours, found out the baby was dropped down, my cervix was almost all the way effaced, but I wasn't dilating more than a 1. So after walking the halls all night, we decided to just go home until the contractions got worse...but then the next morning they stopped. This was the cycle for two weeks: Basically painful contractions would start up, become regular and closer together, and then right when I would be thinking hey maybe we should go back to the hospital, they would just stop. About the same time every night this happened. Stephen and I were going crazy wondering if we were finally gonna have this baby and finally we just stopped getting our hopes up.

Early labor 
Fast forward two weeks. On August 12, around 6PM I started the normal cycle of contractions and they were really weird. The contractions started lasting 10 minutes long, then 20 minutes long, all the way until my stomach just never relaxed except for maybe once an hour. I didn't even tell Stephen but just went to sleep. At about 3 A.M. I woke up and the contractions were normal again, getting a lot more intense and this time they didn't stop. So finally at 8A.M. I called my doctor and she sent us to the hospital...and again we were told that my cervix was only at a 2 and we may have to go home if it didn't change. That put me into action. I was so done with this whole waiting game so when they told me to walk the halls of the hospital, I started doing stairs! I was not about to go home again! Apparently that worked because we after three hours of walking and stairs, I got up to 4cm and officially became a patient at the hospital. Finally!
We were very happy about this...

Active labor
However the waiting was not over. I was told that I couldn't have an epidural until I got up to at least 6cm. It took ALL DAY. By this time, I had been having really painful contractions ever 2-3 minutes for the last 24hours, been doing stairs, walking the halls, and couldn't have any food. I was tired! When I finally did get the epidural, there were certain spots that just wouldn't get numb (should have been a warning sign here), so I still had to breathe through my contractions but I was much happier! At this point the nurses were noticing a few other problems. The babies' heart rate kept dipping very low right after a contraction, and then my blood pressure was getting very low. So they strapped an oxygen mask to my face (reminding me of all those breathing treatments I had as a kid haha mom and dad) and I think this kept me calm during the transition phase too...because again, the epidural was not doing its total job, and I was feeling a lot of my contractions.

Delivery
About 4:30AM I was allowed to start pushing. I was definitely getting worn out and they noticed the baby was not getting anywhere. My doctor called in another OB to get her opinion and they realized my bone structure was preventing the baby from being delivered. So sadly, after all of that work they told me at 6:30AM we were going to have to do a C-section. They got me all prepped, gave me an extra epidural and told me they were going to do a test cut, saying "it should just feel like a pinch." It did NOT feel like a pinch and I told them I definitely still had feeling. Unfortunately the numbing never did fully kick in and I felt the majority of the C-section. (...And I had to apologize to the doctors afterward for screaming at them haha) But the minute I heard Micah's little cry and saw his scrunched up face I didn't care what they were doing to me. He was absolutely perfect! I was able to manage a couple pictures below...and then I passed out:) Stephen assures me that we are never going through that again...but one look at Micah's face and I know I'd do it a million times over.

Micah was born on August 14, 2010 at 7:05 AM. 

(By the way, Micah's cousin Penelope was born June 14 and his cousin Ella was born July 14)