Birth Story

A little late, but I thought some might want to read about Cohen's birth...

Sunday 5-10, Mother's Day, 9:30 pm:
Cale and I went to bed and I started feeling something different in my lower belly. It did not hurt, but was definitely something that I had not felt at all during the pregnancy. The contractions continued through the night. I did not sleep because I was trying to watch the clock. Cale did not sleep either because I kept getting up and down. I think I went to the bathroom 50 times.

Monday 5 - 11, 1:45am:
I finally decided enough was enough...this is it. The contractions were 5 minutes apart for an hour. I wanted to take a shower before we left. Cale heard the shower, so he came in and asked if I was sure this was it. My instinct said yes, but the rest of me thought, "I have no idea what I am doing". We were not in a hurry, so we took our time gathering all the things we needed. Cale dog-proofed the house and we were off to the hospital.

3:00am:
We arrived at Labor and Delivery to find that my elementary - high school friend's mother was working. When we arrived, I was only at a 2-3. She gave us the option to walk for an hour or go home. We debated and decided to stay. We went to walk the halls. Cale videoed me having a contraction (can't wait to laugh at that later). After an hour of walking, we went back to our room. My water broke and they sent us up to our delivery room.

Time gets fuzzy from here:
Once in our delivery room, I waited for an epidural. The epidural did not hurt at ALL. I can't imagine why anyone would choose to have a baby without it. :) After the epidural, we just played the waiting game.

12:30pm:
I was at a 10, so we started the pushing process. Once again - love the epidural. It took me a while to figure out how to push correctly. 3 hours later Cohen arrived. He had the cord wrapped around his neck, so the doc cut the cord right away (later, Cale got to cut the cord closer to Cohen's belly). Cohen was so quiet. He did not come out screaming. Just the opposite. He just looked around and looked extremely confused. Finally, he made a few sounds. We were concerned, but he came around and we got to hold him.

Hospital Stay:
We were so fortunate. There were several people watching out for us: my friend's mom in Labor and Delivery, a student Danielle that I had in student teaching was a nurse on the delivery floor, and a volleyball mom Lynne. I can't remember Lynne's job title, but she kept checking on us throughout our entire stay.