Ethan's Birth Story (Part 1)

I am doing this post into two parts, because baby Ethan will only let me do so much. Until he wants all my attention. But its okay, I rather snuggle my baby. But here is what I have so far.. Enjoy!

Ethan was born July 7, 2016 at 2:10 AM it all started Wednesday July 6th at 3AM. I was exactly 39 weeks pregnant.
I woke up with what felt like menstrual cramps, they would come and go but they were not super strong, I turned to my other side to see if they would go away and they weren't. So I assumed I was having contractions, maybe? I was not sure but I grabbed my phone and opened an app I have that tracks my contractions. I tracked it for an hour and they were about 10 minutes apart. By 4 AM I woke up Matt letting him know I may be having contractions. I told him I was going downstairs to bounce on my yoga ball to see if they would go away. ( now let me tell you a week before this day I had contractions but were false, so I thought these were practice contractions) Matt was so cute and came downstairs with me but laid on  the couch, every couple minutes he would ask me how it was going. By this time they were about 10-18 minutes apart.  It was going to be 5:30 and Matt suggested if we should go on a walk. So we did. It was nice to be up and watch the sunrise. We walked to the park by our house and then back. By this time I was not feeling them anymore, and Matt was convinced they were false. And I thought the same thing. We got home and I just rested, I was no longer feeling any contractions.

I snapped this picture during our walk. 5:55 AM

By 9 AM they started coming back again, by this time I called my mom to let her know what has been happening.She panicked a little and got excited because she felt like the baby was coming soon soon! So she bought a a plane ticket for 11:30 PM. Which made me a little nervous because what if he came before she arrived, I wanted my mom to be there!

Anyway, Luckily that day I had a Doctors appointment with my OB at 2:10 pm. As I rested at home and timed my contractions, the time to head to my appointment came around.  I let the OB know what was going on so she checked my cervix, I was only dilated to a 2! But she mentioned she was pretty sure this baby boy would come at least in 24-48 hours! waaa?! Anyway we went home and just waited. But by 4 PM the contractions started getting stronger, they were about 8-10 minutes apart. Every time I had a contraction Matt would put his hands on my lower back and put pressure as a contraction came in. That helped so much to ease the pain. We tried to stay at home and labor as much as possible. But my contractions kept getting stronger I would cry every time one came in. Matt was so calm and sweet to me to help me get through it. By 8 pm I could not take it anymore so we got our bags and headed to the hospital which thankfully is only like 5 minutes away from us.

We arrived at Labor and Delivery and checked us in a room. They checked my cervix again and I was dilated to a 4! But the nurses had me walk for an hour to make sure I was moving along before they admitted me. So we walked the halls and the contractions were 2-4 minutes apart. I would stop and Matt again would put pressure on my lower back. An hour passed by and the nurse checked my cervix and I was a 5 now! So I was moving! But because I was getting tired of the contractions and scared.I asked for an Epidural. (I was planning on a natural birth, but no thank you. I was not able to handle the pain very well) It was 10pm and the nurse said the Anesthesiologist would not be in for another 20 min. So I had to wait and power through the contractions.