Five Months

I cannot believe that David is 5 months old today...time has gone by so quickly! I thought in honor of this I would recap where our family was 5 months ago. Probably all of you who read this blog are my family and friends...so you already know the story, but here it is one more time!

Five months and two days ago I went in for my 40 week check up (on his due date Tuesday 9/8/09) and found out I was not dilated one single bit. Even though our prenatal classes made sure to let us know that we should really look at our due date as a due month so as not to be disappointed, we couldn't help it! I had eaten spicy foods, ran up the stairs (for any of you who had been to our old apartment...this was a task even for the un-pregnant!) and Zach even tried these "pressure point" ankle massages that were supposed to stimulate labor...yea that didn't work. So, given the fact that Zach was going to be 4 hours away at a football game on Friday, we decided to talk to our doctor about inducing labor so we knew for sure he would be there for the delivery. She was comfortable enough with the gestational age of the baby and agreed to do the procedure. We would come in at 7:00 pm the next day and I would receive some gel tablets to "soften" things up and get me ready for pitocin the next morning at 7:00 am.

So we arrived at the hospital, got set up in our room and met my nurse (who was absolutely wonderful!) and the doctor on duty that night (who was not as wonderful.) They gave me the first gel tablet around 8:00 pm and the doctor told me that since this was my first baby this was probably going to take a very long time, there was no guarantee the pitocin would even work and I could probably expect to see her on her NEXT shift the following night...and with those encouraging words she left. I know...it doesn't sound that bad, but my hormones were all over the map, so she bugged me. Anyway, I was scheduled to get these gel tablets every four hours throughout the night and my nurse told me I should try to get some rest so she gave me some medicine to help me sleep around 11:00 pm. Well, at 11:45 after attempting to sleep for about 30 minutes...my water broke. So we called the nurse and she called the doctor and sure enough, that's what it was and I was even dilated to 1 cm! We were very encouraged by this! Almost immediately after my water broke I started having contractions and they decided not to do any more gel tablets...so it had begun! Two hours later they came in to check me again and I had dilated 1 more cm to 2...at this point the doctor told me they could start me on the pitocin now instead of the morning, but I thought since my body was laboring naturally on its own I'd like to wait, I was also afraid of how I would react to having stronger contractions right away, since these ones were not exactly a walk in the park!

The next two hours my contractions started getting much more intense and when the nurse came to check me at 4:00 am I had dilated 2 more cm to 4! We were so glad that I was progressing and the nurse encouraged me that the first 4 are often the hardest. The nurse came back about a half hour later to fix one of the monitors on my belly and pressed on it to feel my contractions and it was very painful, she told me this was probably because I had not gotten up to go to the bathroom in a few hours and I was being pumped with fluids to keep me hydrated. So I got up to use the restroom (this being much easier said than done...moving in between contractions!) and once I sat down...I felt like I had to push! I told the nurse and immediately she called for "back up" and the two of them got me back into bed, checked me, and found I was dilated to 9 3/4 cm!! I had dilated almost 6 cm in 45 minutes!! From here on out it was a whirl wind of nurses getting everything ready and then a waiting game for the doctor. It was probably only a few minutes that I had to wait but I was not allowed to push until she got there so it felt like forever! Once she arrived, 11 minutes later our beautiful baby boy came into the world at 5:14 am. He was 8 lbs and 7.5 oz of perfection!


Being a mom is wonderful, hard, rewarding, daunting, amazing and humbling. Sometimes I look at this little boy and I just want to cry. He is a precious gift, one that has been entrusted to us by God and I seek grace and mercy everyday - that I would raise him rightly, that he would learn Truth, that I wouldn't teach him my sin tendencies, and that he would see Jesus as beautiful. I love this little man and I'm so thankful to have had him in my life these past five months!


Newborn

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months