The Birth of Blake Edmund Parker

He's here!!!! And I am finally getting a chance to blog a little, thanks to a great daddy whose willing to feed him at 3 in the morning while I blog :)

So here's how it all went down:

For over a week now I have been having Braxton Hicks every 15 min on and off throughout the day and night. They never hurt, just a tightening feeling. Well, on Monday the 17th, these contactions started happening every 5 min consistently. There was still no pain though so I wasn't too concerned.

Around 1 PM, the contractions started to hurt a little. More like gas cramps than actual contractions but they became a lot less regular. Luckily Nick had come home from work to bring me lunch and so he decided to just do some work from home... just in case...

Around 8 PM I started to worry that I was going to have to make a trip to the hospital that night. The contractions still weren't bad enough that I thought I needed to go in right then BUT they were getting slightly worse and more regular. Because Blake had been breech at one point, my dr. wanted me to go to the hospital early in the labor to make sure he was head down. Finally I decided that I would make arrangements for Cole to spend the night with a neighbor so that we could go to the hospital and if I did go into labor, my parents could just pick him up in the morning.

Around 11 PM we dropped Cole off and headed to the hospital. By this point I was having pretty bad contractions every 5 minutes and it was a VERY miserable car ride!!

We arrived at the hospital around 11:20 and the nurse started checking to see what position Blake was in. When I got there she asked me what my pain level was, I told her it was about a 7 on a scale of 1-10. She asked me what my pain tolerance was, like when I would definitely need a epidural. I told her probably a 8 or 9 out of 10. While checking me she told me that I had lied and that I definitely had a higher pain tolerance and that I would understand once she told me how dilated I was. She confirmed that Blake was head down and then informed me that I was at 7 cm, almost 8 cm!!! YIKES!!! She said that my water sack was "bulging" and that if it had broken at home, Nick would have been delivering our baby in the car on the way to the hospital.

Okay, at this point I am FREAKING out that they weren't going to get the epidural in before the birth. It took awhile because my blood pressure was high (probably due to the whole freaking out thing.) so they needed to do some blood tests before the epidural. Finally the dr came in and I got my epidural. I was sooo relieved!

Me chilling after getting the Epi.

Me and Nick excited to meet our baby boy!

It was 1 AM when I got the epidural and by 5 AM I was still at an 8. My water hadn't broken yet but the dr. wanted to try and let it break on it's own. The baby wasn't showing any signs of stress so they weren't in any hurry. We were a little sick of waiting but overall everything was pretty chill.

Then at 5:35 AM my water broke and things go intense REALLY fast. Around 5:50 I was at 10 cm and was having strong urges to push. The dr hadn't been called in yet but the nurse went ahead and had me do a "test" push. Her and Nick held my legs and after just one little push she immediately told me to stop pushing. Nick said "Whoa! Was that the head?!?" and sure enough it was. They went ahead and called my dr at that point and for the next 20 min I had to resist the urge to push. This was probably definitely the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. For some reason the epidural had really worn off (despite pushing the button for more meds) and I was feeling a lot of the pain from the contractions. Not to mention I felt like I was going to explode if I didn't start pushing soon! They were having me doing special breathing and I was breathing so fast that my face started to go numb. LOL! At 6:18 am I was just getting to the point that I was going to tell them that I couldn't hold it anymore and that baby was coming NOW when the doctor came walking through the door. He grabbed my leg and told me to give a big push and out came that baby. That's right, one push and he came flying out, LOL!! Good thing too because I was definitely had all feeling "down there".

Blake was sooooo perfect. He gave a little cry right away and then quieted down as soon as they laid him on me. The first thought that went through my head was "Oh my gosh! He's a redhead!!!" I was so shocked, I thought for sure that we would never have a red headed baby. I have to admit that I am totally in love with his hair and I really hope that it never changes!

Blake Edmund Parker

8 lbs. 6 oz. 20 1/4 inches long

May 18th, 2010 at 6:18 AM

My little red head!

So happy to have him out!

The proud daddy!

Our sweet baby boy!!

And that's how Blake Parker made his way into this world! I have lots of more pictures to post but since I am literally falling asleep at the keyboard right now, they are going to have to wait!!! Thank you to Becky Johnson and my parents for helping out with Cole, I don't know what I would have done with out you guys!!! :)

P.S. Please excuse all my typos and bad grammar! I am drugged up and tired so things are little fuzzy now! ;)