It's a BOY !!!

Well I guess Friday the 13th was my last day at work, as predicted baby was born Monday, June 16th!

Jacob Karl

7lbs, 19 inches

born June 16th @ 7:48am

The weekend itself went fairly well, I did feel a little different on Saturday morning but still headed out to work at the track. I think I started having contractions around noon but they seemed to be very irregular - coming every hour or so, sometimes twice an hour then nothing for a few hours. Sunday morning was pretty much the same feeling all day and I planned to only work at the track until 7ish and then head home. I mostly wanted to go home cause I thought that the dog would need to be let out by then. The races went a little longer then expected but I decided to stick around till the end cause it was only about another hour or so. Off and on all day I would time my contractions to see if they were getting more regular or consistent but they weren't until 8:39pm, this contraction seemed different then the rest of them so I noted the time and waited. Five minutes later there was another one ... hmmm interesting .... five minutes later ...another!! Finally the races were over at 9:00 and I waited for hubby to tell him we should go. He of course was busy with putting things away so I waited, then when he finally saw me waiting I told him that we should go. So he says - ok, bye ... see you at home. And I say ... no - I think you should drive and we need to go now! ;) It didn't take him long to catch on to what I was talking about so off we went. We had to stop at home to let the dog out and grab my bags, then I needed to decide if I wanted to go to the close hospital or if I could make it to the hospital that my doctor could deliver at (about 30 minutes away). I decided to head to the further hospital just to make sure that I wasn't in false labor, your suppose to wait an hour with consistent contractions before going to the hospital so this would make sure that I was over the hour mark.

We made it to the hospital in fairly good time, after checking in at the admin desk it was 10:15pm - I went into the observation room and the nurse did all her checks. I was already at 5cm -- needless to say, I would be staying and probably be having a baby fairly quick~! By 2am I was already at 7cm and I felt like I was dealing with the pain fairly good, the nurses kept asking if I wanted anything for the pain so I asked the nurses how long they thought I would be at that stage for? Which I know is pretty hard to say cause everyone is different but the general idea was that since this was my first pregnancy and my water had not broke yet that I could be at this stage for at least a few more hours! So - since I had been up since 6:30am I thought that maybe a little sleep would be a good idea but I wasn't in that much pain for a epi so I decided to ask for the morphine/ gravol that I hoped would reduce the discomfort enough for me to catch a few hours of rest before the real work began!

The morphine was almost a complete waste of time, all it really did was make me extra sleepy but didn't seem to do anything for my contractions. I think I did manage to get about an hour of sleep but at 5:30am the contractions started again and this time were twice as strong as before. They checked me again and I was at 8cm, now too far along to get the epi so I was on my own!! I think at around 7am they checked me once more to find out that I was 9cm and this time offered laughing gas, I accepted because it was the only thing that I could have and I thought it would be better then nothing!? Then time kinda flew by, my water still had not broke yet and they were going to do it for me but there was another lady giving birth so they decided to wait. Well baby had other plans and before I knew it my water had broke, they still thought that I would be in labor for a while and wanted to check me again, I didn't really want them too this time cause I was so uncomfortable and I think they realized why when they checked .... baby was almost here!

Well I'll leave out most of the messy stuff but I must say that hubby did a excellent job at coaching me, didn't pass out once (although he did stay above the waist), Jacob was born at 7:48am and hubby even cut the cord!! I can't believe how fast the last hour flew by and even after he was born I seemed to be in awe about what had just happened and the fact that he was finally here!! We stayed in the hospital until Tuesday afternoon and then finally headed home. As most of you already know... no the room was not finished yet but by the time the Capital Health lady came by for her visit on Wed - the room was done! Here are some pics of the room, I will try to post more pics of Jacob soon but as most of you know finding the time to get on the computer can be a little hard at first!? Hope to write soon! :)