Lots of changes in 2012, part 2

The second part of our many changes in 2012 (this year is definitely proving itself to be interesting so far!!). Warning, this post is a long description of the most exciting event of the year thus far - Blake's birth!

On Sunday, January 8th, I kept having some contractions all day, pretty regularly but not too strong. We took two long walks, I took a shower, packed my bags, and decided I was pretty sure I might actually be in labor, lol. But just to kill some time (and eat dinner just in case we decided to go to the hospital!), we headed out to Publix to pick up some last minute groceries and grab some hot wings from the deli. As I was walking into Publix, I felt two little gushes of fluid, one after the other. Hmm. Okay, embarrassing, I either just peed myself or my water broke. Back to the house to eat my hot wings. Two more gushes over the next hour. Daniel was convinced my water broke, me not so much. I didn't know what it was, but I wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't some weird pregnancy fluid coming from who-knows-where.

After all of my indecisiveness about actually going to L&D, we called Melissa & Greg (thanks for being so awesome, guys!!) and asked if we could put Logan to bed at their house while I got checked out at the hospital. Getting checked out in triage at L&D is always nerve wracking for me. I feel like I'm taking a test and I can't fail - if I'm not actually in labor and it's a just a false call, I'll feel like I got an F in the school of pregnancy. What an idiot, second child and she doesn't even know if she's in labor?! Pretty sure that's what all the nurses think when I waltz in there with some contractions and a guess on whether my water broke or not, lol.

I was dilated to a 3-4 cm. The nurse did a swab for amniotic fluid and while it came up mostly negative, there was still that shred of doubt in the negative result so she told us to go walk the halls for an hour and then come back to see if I had any changes. Walking the halls was so eerie - felt just like the night we had Logan and had to walk the halls for an hour, only that night L&D was hopping at 11:30 pm and on this particular night it was creepily empty at 8 pm.

Went back to get checked again and SUCCESS! I was now dilated to a solid 5cm and my water had definitely broken. Whew. Definitely a good feeling to find out that you're not actually crazy and you are leaking amniotic fluid, not pee. The nurse took us to our room and we signed the admittance papers. Hurray! We'll get to meet our newest little man sometime soon :)

After laboring for a little while and calling our parents to let them know we were officially checked in at Baptist South, I decided that I'd had enough and it was time for some happy drugs. In came the anesthesiologist to set up my epidural, which might very well be my least favorite part of the entire birthing process. 1) I really don't like needles, and 2) I really dislike procedures where the risk of screwing up is pretty high. And anesthesiology definitely falls under those two categories! Thankfully everything turned out fine and within 15 minutes I was all comfy and pain free. During Logan's labor, my epidural slowed things down. This time with Blake, my epidural definitely didn't prevent any action! My contractions sped up considerably and became more intense after my epidural. Yay for progress!

The comfort only lasted for so long though. Soon after the contractions started getting more intense, I started to feel them in my upper left stomach area. Ouch! By then my parents had arrived and my mom was able to distract me through most of the pain. No matter how many times I upped my epidural, it didn't seem to help. Finally I was able to get some relief by moving into a more reclined position. I could still feel the contractions but it wasn't quite as painful - I'll take it! Around 5:45 am the nurse came in and said I had reached 10cm and it was time to push.

My parents cleared out and it was just me, Daniel, our awesome nurse, and two more nurses to assist with delivery and newborn stuff. She started out having me do some pushes, but had me stop after a few minutes - it wasn't going to be an hour long pushing session like last time! She called in the doctor, and 8 minutes later Blake Daniel was born :) he was so adorable, and BIG! 8 lbs 9 oz, way bigger than any of us had predicted. Guess that explains why my stomach always felt too small for him and I was constantly being poked!

Anyways, we are thoroughly in love with our new little munchkin, and he is pretty much the clone of his brother. Sometimes when I look at him I forget that it's not still 2009 and he isn't Logan. Can't wait to see if he continues to look like Logan as he gets older! I would love to have two curly haired blonde boys :) Although I am still keeping my fingers crossed that Blake keeps his current dark blue eyes!