It's official-we are parents! Wow-that's a crazy thought! :) Jaden Paul Cox was born on December 8th, 2010 at 6:10 PM. He weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces and was 18 inches long. Here's how it all came about :)
At 2:30 in the morning I woke up with a contraction. I thought it was just another Braxton Hicks contraction because surely I wasn't going into labor! Another contraction hit 10 minutes later and I thought-these are fake for sure! After half an hour of timeable contractions I woke Chris up. He was pretty out of it and so I just told him I was having contractions and I thought they may be timeable. Half an hour after that (3:30 AM at this point) I woke Chris up again and said "honey-these contractions have been timeable for about an hour now...think we should call the doctor just to see if we should make a trip?" Both of us thought it wasn't the real thing...I just had an appointment with my doctor the day before and I was only 2 cm. dilated and only 70% thinned out...so we were planning on when we would get induced about 18 hours prior to these contractions! Chris said we should wait because my contractions were still 10 minutes apart at that point and I was content with that. I went to make one of my many trips to the bathroom and my water broke! I called out to Chris and said "um-honey-pretty sure we're going to the hospital now!" Chris was in go-mode from that point on. He was amazing! We packed up the last few items for our hospital stay and we were off. Chris got us to the hospital and we got all checked in. By 4 AM they said we were staying :)
We moved to our labor and delivery room and things were quiet for about 3 hours. Contractions kept coming but not terrible at that point. At 6 AM Chris went out to get himself some food (it was going to be a long day) and to go home to take care of Rudy since we just kind of left him...our poor dog was barking like crazy when we left at 3:30 in the morning and he NEVER barks! Chris got back around 7:30 AM, showered and everything...I was in bed looking gross and very jealous of his shower! The nurse started me on the lowest dose of petocin at 7 AM to get my contractions going a little faster...with my water broken, it was time to get baby out! :) By 10:30 AM I was crying (bawling more like it) because of how intense the pain of a contraction was...at that point I told Chris-"I want an epidural." I told him "I want an epidural and I want to take a nap!" Chris didn't believe me that I could take a nap during that type of intense pain...o how he would be surprised :) Both of us kept asking my nurse-is it too soon to get an epidural? Am i being wimpy for getting an epidural after only 6 and a half hours of contractions? I got the epideral regardless at 11:30 AM and it kicked in within an hour. My nurse came in after the epidural kicked in and measured me again-7 cm dilated and 100% thinned. She said I was probably 6 cm dilated before I got the epideral-go me! :) I then proceeded to doze on and off from 1 PM to 3:30 PM. It was amazing. I cannot tell you how good it felt to just rest after being up for those 10 hours prior...
Right after I got the epidural, Chris told me that his family was on their way down to Kansas City! How awesome! I was so excited to have some family there to welcome Jaden into the world. They arrived at just about 3 PM (I think) and we talked and laughed and talked some more. It was so fun! At 3:30 PM my nurse came in and checked me again-it was almost time to start pushing!!! She talked me through what that was going to be like and we were almost ready. Chris and I prayed before we began the pushing part and I'm so glad we did. It was a good reminder to focus on one push and contraction at a time and to fully rely and rest on Jesus through the entire labor process. I was really thankful that even with the epidural I could still very much feel when I was having a contraction and so I was able to fully listen to my body and tell Chris-"time to push again." I pushed from 4:45ish until 6:10 PM when Jaden finally entered the world! When they told me it was over and he was out, I cried. I couldn't believe it! He was finally here! FINALLY!
I spent an hour with my son on my chest and we just talked and talked (ok...I talked-he cried...wailed to be more exact). I loved it! Chris held him, family held him, Chris held him some more. I absolutely love watching Chris hold Jaden-he's so good with him and he is SOOOO in love! It's ridiculously cute! :) Right after Jaden was born my nurse brought me diet soda-can we say YUM??? It was amazing! I only ate ice chips the whole day except for right away in the beginning of the day my nurse gave me a popsicle :) That was so good! My friend Wendy brought us pizza at 9:30 that night and I was literally floating on clouds-i love love love love love food! :) We hung out with Wendy until almost midnight that night and then it was time for bed :) A long day with such a good ending :)
Wow-glad I relived that only through words :) I won't spend much longer on this post as its already ridiculously long, but I'll end with this...Labor was definitely an adventure...I am still amazed at how someone Jaden's size could fit inside my stomach...I am simply amazed at what God does and how He created the body. I am so grateful for my husband-he was an incredible support through it all. We couldn't be any more in love with Jaden-he's just perfect! Enjoy some pictures of our son-he's a cutie!
Praise the Lord for such a wonderful blessing of a sweet son! He's is such a cutie pie. I can't wait to meet him. Love you guys!
ReplyDeleteI love how you tell this story, Annie! I bet you'll be glad someday that you have it all written down when, miraculously, your memory of all that pain and effort starts to fade. :) Love you and Chris--and Jaden! Oh, and Rudy, too.
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