Little Footy Pajamas: Our Precious Boy has Arrived

John Morton Hatch
7lbs and 12ounces
19.5 inches long
Born at 1:29 pm
On February 21, 2009

Now for the birth story:
I began having contractions on Friday morning but they were nothing to really be worried about so I continued on with my daily routine. As the day progressed on they were getting more intense and could be timed. So Andrew and I began to time them, noticing that they were about 10 minutes apart and sometimes 5 minutes. He left it up to me if I wanted to go to the hospital, around 9:45pm I decided that it was time for us to make our trip to labor and delivery, crossing my fingers they would not send me home. We arrived a Mercy around 10:45pm, I was dilated to a 1 so they watched me for a hour, being able to see my contractions rise and fall helped me deal with the pain I was in. After the hour was up I was dilated to a 3 so they decided to admit me into the hospital. Off the Labor and Delivery!!!
I had been telling myself that I was going to go all natural but let me tell you when you are in back labor you really just want that pain to go away. It was super painful so I decided it was time to take an epidural (which isn't as bad as people say they are just a little shot to numb the area and then they insert the huge needle with the tube. Not bad at all.), so after getting the epidural I was able to sleep and save up my energy!! Early on Saturday morning under doctors orders the nurse broke my water and inserted a fetal monitor into John's head because he kept falling asleep. I continued to dilate until I hit a rut in the road at a 9 for about 4 hours so my doctor told the nurse to start me on oxytocin to help bring me to a ten. Finally around 10am something I think I was dilated to a 10 and began to push. I pushed for a good two hours just to bring John down since he was still sitting pretty high.
I was truly blessed with a great doctor who coached my through my pushing telling me to get mad (which wasn't hard I really wanted to punch my labor and delivery nurse in the face a few times), he and Andrew were great coaches/cheerleaders. Finally after all the pushing I completed my final push not only did his head come out but his whole body came along as well. Andrew cut his umbilical cord, then he was taken away to be suctioned out really well because he had passed his first bowel movement and had meconium in his system. Once he was cleaned out I was able to hold him for a second then the wanted to continue their cleaning in the nursery just to make sure he was cleaned out. While he was being cleaned out I was being stitched up from being torn by his big head. John also came out with some battle wounds on the back his head which are slowly starting to heal, but his poor head was swollen and torn apart, poor little guy.

John and Daddy spending some quality time together once we got home.
Andrew is one proud daddy!!!

My sweet boy has arrived!! I must say that I have loved him since the day I found out we were going to be starting a family and now our little man is the light of our lives!!