Details

On Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:30 and felt like something wasn't quite right. After getting up to use the restroom, I realized my water had broken. I came in and woke up Chad, who responded to the news with something like, "but we have 3 weeks still."

We called our friends Phil and Tracy to come over to watch Megan. They took Megan and got her ready for church and we went to the hospital. Now, any given Sunday, we usually have some kind of responsibility at church. This particular Sunday, Chad had a solo in the Men's Choir, was one of two people in a skit and his quartet was supposed to sing. Once I was checked in and they verified that my water really had broken, I convinced Chad to go ahead and go to church. I wasn't having any contractions at this point and I wasn't dialated yet. With Megan, it took hours to get things started, so I figured he wasn't likely to miss anything. My friend Tracy came over to walk the halls with me. I wasn't in any pain or having regular contractions, so we had a good time.

Chad got back to the hospital at about 11:30 (he stopped by his work to get things arranged so he didn't have to go later) and we walked together. At this point my contractions started to become regular and more intense. At 12:30, I decided it was time for the epidural. I think I finally had it around 1 or so and then I spent the next hour relaxing. The epidural slowed down my contractions, so the nurse decided to use a little pitocin to get things progressing again.

I think around 3:30 or 4 I started to feel uncomfortable again and the nurse started to get things ready for delivery. Adam arrived at 4:56. The nurse said I pushed for 11 minutes, but I think she counted the time the doctor was actually there. Not that I pushed before that, but I think if the doctor had been there earlier, I was ready.





All said and done, this delivery went much smoother than Megan's. With Megan, I got to the hospital at 8:00 pm, this time, it was 8:00 am. A full nights sleep before was wonderful. I was in labor 16 hours with Megan and pushed for 2+ hours, with Adam, it was 9 hours. I still managed to throw up before, during and after delivery just like with Megan. I'm not sure if it was the medicine or just the intensity of labor, but it's a lovely side effect.



Megan came up to the hospital at around 7:15 with my parents. She was very excited to see Adam. She has responded better than I thought to having a new brother. Not that I expected horrible things, but I expected some jealousy. She was actually very protective of him in the hospital and would ask people to give Adam back to me. Her behavior has been better since he has arrived.



We decided to go home after the first night. We had to stay at the hospital 24 hours after he was born and had the option to stay a second night, but I wanted to get home. I felt restless at the hospital and I wanted to get Megan into her normal routine. My parents were staying for the week, so I knew that I wouldn't have to do anything other than take care of Adam and love on Megan, otherwise, I might have stayed the extra night. I'm glad I went home when I did, I felt much more comfortable at home.