Ben's grand entrance

I'm so thankful to Tyler for keeping this up over the last few days while I've been occupied with our new little wonder. If you haven't gotten your fill of pictures, here's a link to see more:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8ActWbdo4buGi-&emid=sharshar&linkid=link5

Ben is the sweetest gift, and we are so enjoying getting to know him on the outside! My mom has sent me to my room (to rest), so I thought it would be a good time to give everyone the scoop on how it all went down. She's been playing nurse to me and Ben since he arrived and we're lucky enough to have her stay through the week.

OK, so for those who are curious, here's the lowdown on my birth story. Around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, I'd just gotten back in bed from yet another bathroom trip and was dozing off when what felt and sounded like a rubber band popped in my stomach. I immediately jumped out of bed, just in time for my water to break! I woke Tyler up and he made coffee and took a quick shower as I called my family ("get in the car!") and my doctor ("we're getting in the car!") and threw the last-minute items into my hospital bag. I started having mild contractions, but they weren't more than cramps until we actually arrived at the hospital around 3:30 a.m. However, once we'd checked in and I'd changed into my gown, they were coming fast and furious and strong enough to send me to my knees. The doctor checked and discovered I was already 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced. I told the nurse that while I wanted an epidural, I wanted to wait a little while so that I could "experience the whole labor process." They say you learn from every experience, and what I learned from that is that unmedicated births are for a different breed of woman than myself. That next hour or so was officially THE worst pain I've ever known. The reason it was over an hour until I had relief was that I had to get through a whole bag of saline through an IV before they could administer the epidural (a helpful hint I would have enjoyed knowing about beforehand). Tyler and my nurse held my hands and helped me focus on my breathing and my happy place until the nice man with the meds showed up!

OK, it's about 5 hours later since I started this...ah, life with a newborn. Anyway, so when my parents, sister and brother-in-law arrived at the hospital around 7 a.m., I was feeling much better. The epidural had not hurt at all, and wasn't making me loopy, just more like myself again, and not a groaning, sweating cavewoman! Mom and Jess helped Tyler as my pushing coaches, starting around 7:40. It was so great to have all three of them there. Pushing out a baby while paralyzed from the waist down is pretty hard to do, so the encouragement was much appreciated. Unfortunately, Ben's big, hairy head was stuck on his way through my pelvic bone. My doctor kept checking in on me, but there still wasn't much progress, so at about 10 a.m., she said, "it's time to deliver this baby." At that point, Mom and Jess joined Dad and Michael in the waiting room and Tyler and I were flanked by about 4 more nurses and techs armed with a vacuum and all sorts of tools/skills to get him out, if necessary. Fortunately, all he needed was a little more room, compliments of a quick episiotomy, and then a little more room, compliments of his big, hairy head tearing his way out into the world! I was actually able to see him make his debut - which I'm so thankful for. Words can not describe that moment, seeing a new life begin, one that started from inside you.

Well, now it's a couple hours since I last wrote...this is quite a project these days! Long story short, I ended up developing pregnancy-induced hypertension, which basically means that my blood pressure was sky high and I was at risk for seziures and more fun stuff. So we were sent to the perinatal unit for recovery, instead of regular postpartum. I had to be hooked up to a magnesium drip and have blood drawn every six hours. After the first 24 hours, they removed that IV and stopped the blood work, which definitely made trips to the bathroom easier and helped me feel better too.

On Friday, we were able to come home a little after three. Since then, as Tyler said, we've been enjoying settling in as a new family. Tyler's quite the proud papa, if you can't tell, and has hated to have to return to the real world this week. I had a hard time letting him go too!

I'm off to bed for a couple hours (fingers crossed). Will check back soon!