Worth the Wait

Well, as you can imagine, I have not had much time to update the blog lately with the new little one. Last I wrote, I was waiting on the hospital and so many of you may figure I've been in labor for nearly 3 weeks, because I left you hanging. I know everyone has been dying to read the birth story so here we go.

First I would like to make a suggestion to anyone awaiting care from a hospital. If everyone you speak to uses the word "chaos" (particularly when refering to labor and delivery) avoid going there if at all possible. I was told they would call me when they had a bed and they did not. So I called them. Let me make a second suggestion - don't do that. We arrived around noon and got settled in. A nurse monitored me and by 2:15 had pitocin running through my veins. Then she disappeared - for a while. Apparently those people who I tried not to hate who were in labor on their own were delivering. The pitocin continued on til about 6:00 when wonderful (and handsome) Dr. Miller had mercy on me and stopped the pitocin for several hours until I could eat supper. Arby's has never tasted so good. At 8:00ish I started pitocin again and spent all night with nothing really, only minor contractions. We actually got a little sleep. By 6:00 the next morning I had decided I was coming home. (By the way, the saying "the darkest hour is just before dawn" has quite a bit of truth. I nearly had a nervous breakdown at this hour.) The heck with the fact that this kid could be massive, I figured he was nicely trying to tell me to wait. Back comes wonderful (and handsome) Dr. Miller and he tells me their going to break my water and I could have this baby by around 11:00. I love Dr. Miller, but I knew his optimism was far too much. Please he was going off call so he would not be delivering the baby, which made us all a little sad. (Can you tell he's my favorite? He also delivered 2 of the previous 3). He told me to get an epidural if I felt at all that I needed it because waiting too long could mean not having one. Thinking the boy was going to weigh 9 lb. 11oz. I followed his advice, got the epidural around 10:30 at 3 cm dilated. And waited. And waited. (He wanted to make sure we realized just how much he was worth the wait.) At 6:30 or so Dr. Hilton (also wonderful, even though this was my first experience with her) gave me 2 hours to get from 8 to 10 cm or she was going to do a c-section. Finally sometime after 8:00 I was 10 cm. Pushing began and Jonathan Tyler made his way into this world at 8:47. I suppose he wanted to join the others in the 12+ hour club. No need to break any records, he figured. He weighed 8 lb. 14 oz. and was 21 3/4 in. long. Just to prove he was worth the wait, here's a few pictures, with more to come, I'm sure.