Cody is here--the birthing story 10.10.10

Read at your own risk. :) This is more for me than anyone else...

I've been worried that I wouldn't know I was in labor if it happened naturally since I was induced with Decker and then had back labor. I only knew that I had to go to the hospital when my water broke. So I was praying to Heavenly Father that my water would break with this pregnancy, so I would know.

On Saturday night, October 9th, Jon and the kids, my mom, Mike, Decker and I were at home. We all had BLT's for dinner and I remember Nickie calling and asked how I felt. I remember thinking my back hurt, and I was sitting resting, not understanding why my back hurt. A little later I went to the bathroom and liquid kept coming out...could this be real? Could my water have broken? After a few minutes of excitement and denial...saying I wasn't sure and telling everyone that maybe that's not what happened, I was confident that my water broke! Yea! It was about 9:00 when this happened. Ilee was so excited that this was happening while she was here. Nickie came over soon after we called her. We then called the hospital and they said to come on in. We told them we would probably be there in about 40 minutes--that ended up being more like an hour and a half. Mike called our home teacher over to give me a blessing before heading to the hospital. What sweet peace.

I was now actually feeling contractions! How weird to not have experienced them naturally before with Decker. Once we got in the car, I started to time them. They were about 3 minutes apart! Wow! This was what it was like to time your contractions! I thought, if they were already 3 minutes a part, I could have my baby very soon. We've been excited to possibly have little Cody on 10.10.10 my mom said, you just to hold off for 1 and a half more hours!

My mom followed Mike and me to the hospital and Nickie came over to watch Decker at our house for the night.

We checked in at 10:30 p.m. When they checked me I was dilated to a 3. I thought I was a lot further along since my contractions were so close together. The nurse, Raisa, said I would probably dilate 1 centimeter per hour. Typical of 2nd babies. At 2:00 a.m. I decided I wanted to get an epidural. At that point I was dilated to a 6. The anethesiologist came in and it took him 3 tries to get the epidural in right. That was the worst part of the whole night. It caused me to throw up my BLT from dinner earlier. Ewww...I felt much better after that. :)

The epidural worked, I was numb down to my toes and me legs felt like bricks! Such a nice feeling, (of not feeling) after having felt contractions all night. I was too excited to sleep, so I kept mom and Mike up talking to them and the nurse while watching the contractions on the moniter and not feeling them. That was NICE!!!

At 5:00 a.m. I reached 10 centimeters and was ready to push. At about 4:30 I noticed I was starting to feel my feet. Then we realized the epidural tube had disconnected from me...oh no! And what a time for this to happen! The anethesiologist came back to reconnect it, but it wasn't enough time to build up my painfree delivery even though I desperately pushed the button for more drugs.

I was told to push on every other contraction. It was painful but also a neat feeling to feel the contractions and the desire to push. My friend Sarah calls it the "Ring of Fire" as the baby comes out.

Mike caught Cody as I pushed him out at 5:49 a.m. The oncall doctor was with another patient, so a midwife, Michele was our deliverer. As Cody came out, she said, "wait" the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck once, twice and then wrapped under his arm. Now we understood why when I laid on my left side that Cody's heartrate would go down, but it was fine when I laid on my right side. Mike cut the umbilical cord, and then they immediately laid him on my chest. He got to lay there for a long time--- 10-15 minutes?? and I got to talk to him. He looked like Decker in these first initial moments, but as the hours and couple of days passed, Cody definitely has his own look. He has lighter hair which looks almost red. He is a little chunkier than our lean machine, Decker. He weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long.

Grandma Wood and Decker came to meet Cody at about 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. Decker climbed up onto my bed with me and as I introduced him. Decker pointed out his eyes, mouth and nose. I asked him if he wanted to hold Cody and he said "yes". So I put Cody in his lap. Cody made a couple of cries and Decker started to push him away. He was done holding him. For the rest of their visit, Decker was checking out light switches, the blinds in the windows, the chairs, the machines and anything else he could get his hands on. Mike blew up a rubber glove into a balloon and so he had fun hitting that into the air and drinking out of my super sized water bottle and straw.

Grandpa Bob, Jon, Ilee and Quin came to visit later.

On Monday, our Doctor, Karen Wells came in to congratulate us and so we asked if she could do Cody's circumcision. We felt confident in her ablilities since she had done Decker's. So she and her assistant, Lily Beth took care of Cody. We met Lilly Beth when Decker was born. They shared the same birthday, July 7th, and we really connected. We were excited to see her again. She brought a sweet gift of a stuffed bear for Decker, a "Baby is Sleeping" do not disturb pillow for Cody and Seattle chocolates for Mike and I to share and celebrate with. It was really sweet!

All in all, it was a great delivery with very few complications...if you don't count the epidural getting unplugged... :) Welcome to our family baby Cody!