Meeting Michael

Michael is finally here!! Ben already introduced him on here and gave a quick run-through of the events of his birth. But I wanted to tell my story too.

I had been scheduled for an induction on Wednesday morning, and I really wasn't looking forward to it. I had been induced with Lily, and remembered really hating the Pitocin and feeling like everything was out of my control. Not that your exactly in control when your body goes into labor anyway, but I really was hoping to give my body a chance to start the whole process on it's own and not help it along medically unless I had to. But we knew he was going to be large and I was getting close to a week overdue. I really didn't want to have a C-section because he had gotten too big, and I was really anxious to be NOT pregnant anymore anyway, so I was willing to be induced. Still, I hoped I wouldn't have to be.

By Tuesday afternoon I'd pretty much reconciled myself to the fact that I was going to be induced. Around 5:00 pm I decided I really wanted some Panda Express for dinner, so we were waiting for Lily to wake up and then finish her dinner. We were just wiping her up and about to get her ready to go when I felt my water break. It was really surreal. I never expected my water to break on it's own - the women in my family tend to always have their water broken at the hospital after hours of being in labor already.

That was at 6:00 pm. We called our friends the Adams, and Ashlyn came over to pick up Lily. We stopped at Wendy's before going to the hospital (Panda Express was too far away) and got to the Hospital about 8:00. After triage checked me out, I was checked in. I had started having contractions as soon as my water broke, and by that point they were every 2 or 3 minutes. At 9:00 I asked for an epidural, and by 9:30 it was in my back. It took a little while to start working, and at first there was a "window" - meaning I could still feel the full force of the contraction, but just in one spot. My window was on my left side. Sometimes there's nothing they can do about windows, but there were able to adjust my epidural and it went away. I was very grateful for that!

Right after triage. I was very excited to be at the hospital!

Goofy smile because I'd just gotten my epidural in!

Things were happening really fast. Shortly after the epidural was in I started having contractions every minute (thank goodness I could only barely feel them!!), and when they checked me at 11:30 pm they were surprised to tell me that I was already dilated to a 10. At 8 I had been between 4 and 5 cm, so it really had happened pretty fast. We waited until about 11:45 to start pushing, figuring that he would be born after midnight like I was kind of hoping he would be. But Michael was so ready to come out, and after only 12 minutes of pushing, he was here!

Love at first sight.

It was really really amazing. The whole experience was so different than with Lily. I felt so much better, and I feel like my body handled labor and giving birth so much better than last time. I was so impatient before my due date and after as I kept waiting and waiting for him to come, but now that everything is done, I wouldn't have had it any other way. It was an amazing experience to go into labor on my own, and I know that my body was so much more ready and that Michael was so much more ready than if it had happened earlier. I was really happy about how everything turned out. I'm recovering much much faster than I did with Lily as well, which is super nice.

I am so so happy that Michael is here! He's so perfect, and fits perfectly in our family already. And Lily is so happy to be a big sister. She gets really upset when he cries because she's worried about him, and she constantly wants to kiss him and hug him and tickle him! She's still learning to be gentle and soft around him, but she's already getting better at that.

 
Lily meeting Michael for the first time.

Ben had been working from home from a few days before Michael was due, and has been home since as well. He'll go back to work next Thursday. It's been a lot of fun to be together as a family and learn how everything works now that the adults no longer outnumber the kids! Ben has been a huge help with Lily when I'm nursing Michael, and surprisingly, Lily hasn't shown too many signs of jealousy - yet. I'm sure it'll come. The last couple of days have been really good, and I'm looking forward to the thousands more to come as our family continues to grow and learn together. We are so blessed, and life is great!