The Birth Story

We are so thrilled to welcome little Andy into our home. We're definitely still adjusting to the constant demands of parenthood, but we're so grateful to have this sweet guy with us. We fall more and more in love with him every day.

Labor and delivery went better than I expected. I think I've been scared my entire life to deliver a baby. The "story" begins on Tuesday, June 14. I went to the doctor and they were concerned I was measuring smaller than the week before. (I'd measuring small the whole pregnancy, so we weren't too concerned.) They sent me in for a non-stress test and an ultrasound to make sure the baby was still growing okay and doing well. In the non-stress test, I was having contractions 5 min. apart, about a minute long. Because of that, the nurse said she thought we'd deliver in the next couple of days. (Ha! I continued to have the same contractions all week long...) The ultrasound put the baby smaller than the doctor hoped--they figured the placenta wasn't giving baby what he needed and he'd do better outside of me than inside of me. The doctor called me on Friday the 17th and told me they'd induce me Sunday night, when I was 39 weeks. I'd convinced myself the whole pregnancy I'd have the baby a week late, so this came as a bit of a shock.

39 Weeks, right before we left for the hospital:


We went to St. Marks on Sunday night, expecting to be put on Petocin around 8 or 9 and to have the baby sometime early Monday morning. However, apparently they don't just give you Petocin straight away--they give you something to soften your cervix for 12 hours before they start you on Petocin, meaning we probably wouldn't have the baby until Monday night sometime. We were a little disappointed. They put me on the monitors, but I was contracting too frequently to give me the stuff that softens my cervix. Long story short, they ended up giving me Petocin around midnight.

Petocin got the contractions moving a little bit and my waters broke about 4 AM when I was dilated to a 3. That's when the real labor began. The contractions were so painful. I had an epidural put in an hour or so later. After that, they checked me again and I was already at an 8. Thanks to the AMAZING epidural, I pretty much slept until I got to a 10 a couple hours later. The nurse couldn't get ahold of my doctor for almost an hour, so we just kinda sat there in transition, sleeping. Finally, she talked to the doctor who had me start pushing with her and made his way to the hospital. Pushing was way harder than I thought it would be. I pushed for about an hour, and little Andy was born at 10:32 AM on Monday, June 20.

Cameron was an amazing support the whole time. It was such an amazing thing to experience together. My mom and my sisters Sara and Rachel came in for pushing and the birth, which was really neat. They handed Andy to me right after--I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing I couldn't stop crying. We were so happy he wasn't too small--6 lbs 3 oz, 19.5 inches. He was perfectly healthy. Funny enough, we were concerned he didn't cry very much in the hospital. We maybe heard him cry 3 times there? We thought we had a mellow baby. HA--this baby can scream. He just saved it for his parents once he got home. :)

We took forever to decide on a name. Our ideas before the birth were Max, Owen, Andy, Beck, and Jackson. My favorite was Max; Cameron's favorite was Jackson. We finally narrowed it down the morning we left the hospital to Max and Andy. I liked the name Max more than Andy, but it just seemed like Andy was his name. Who knows--maybe baby #2 will be a boy named Max.

Just minutes after birth:

Dad's 1st time holding Andy:

My first time holding Andy after he was all cleaned up:

1st Bath: