Sunday, January 20, 2008

Jan. 11 - Jack's Birthday!

Friday is when the excitement started. However, it didn't really start until Friday afternoon.

We had another doctor's appointment Friday at 11:15 or somewhere around there. We went. I had progressed a bit, but not that much. It turns out I am unique in my laboring process. The doctors didn't quite understand me. Even though my doctor didn't think I'd make it through the weekend (which he was right about!), we scheduled an induction for Thursday, Jan. 17. We left the office to wait for water, pain or blood since any one of those things meant going back to the hospital to have the baby!

We headed to Panera for lunch. I ate light considering I didn't know when I would go into active labor, and you really don't want a full stomach for active labor.

From there, we decided to go to Huntley Outlets to do a little shopping. We hit up the Maternity store one last time. We bought a little sleeper from Osh Kosh, and we found a bunch of cute little things for our son at Carter's. The last place I really wanted to go to before we went home was The Children's Place. So we walked over there, and about 5 steps from the doors I felt a gush. My water had broken. This was not as clear as it sounded, but I'm still not going to go into the details. We called the doctor to see if what I had experienced was indeed my water breaking, and she said go to the hospital. (by the way, I have several doctors, both male and female).

We stopped at the house to pick up the camera (we had everything else in the car). My smart husband had thought ahead and had taken Breyer to Ruffners, the doggie day care/kennel that morning, so all we had to do was make a phone call to keep her there overnight. We got to the hospital at about 4 p.m.

Labor and delivery stories are a little boring and often exaggerated. I'm going to spare the details here and just summarize. It was a wonderful experience. I would not describe it as extremely painful or horrible. In fact, most of my experience was very calm. If you want to know more, just ask.

Jack Reilley Barrett was born at 9:52 p.m. He weighed 7lbs 4 oz and was 21 inches long. Steve and my mom were with us in the delivery room. I'd highly recommend these two as birthing coaches if you ever are in need. We had lots of people in the waiting room too. Almost all of our immediate families were able to be there.

Of course, we have a ton of photos, but I don't want to clog the blog, so I'm only going to post a few here.

DSC_0009 Arriving at the hospital (yes, I am in labor!)

DSC_0022 Proud Dad and his son

DSC_0029 Our first family photo

For more photos, check out my Flickr site. If you aren't a part of the Barrett group yet, just email me.

No comments: