For this child WE PRAYED!

On Monday evening; Nov. 12, I took Allie to gymnastics from 4:30 to 5:30 and had 3 contractions while I was there.  (even told Allison they were only coming every 20 min.) so didn't look like anything would happen that night.

After the 10 minute drive home I started making dinner and realized that all of a sudden I was having a lot of pain.  I decided to start timing my contractions and realized that they were coming every 2 min 45 sec. (thanks to the I Phone contraction APP!).  I thought surely not, but decided I better call Jon and my parents.  I told them  to get ready but I was not totally sure I was really in labor.  I got my bags out and still managed to feed Allie (and even help her eat her fish taco so it would not keep falling out!) and eat some myself (Jon was now on his way home) all the while having contractions.

I took this picture in between contractions and right before my water broke!

I then called the Dr. and then realized that I needed HELP now and called my parents back and told them to hurry up and get here- it was happening very fast!  

45 minutes after getting home from gymnastics, my water broke!  And it was not a trickle…  I got a little panicked because I was totally not prepared for it to happen SO quickly!  Luckily everyone had gotten there by now and poor Allie was so upset because everyone was running around and she didn't get the memo of what was going on!!! (I didn't want to scare her and I was not sure what to tell her, so I said nothing!)

We got in the car about 7 and my contractions were less than 2 minutes apart and VERY intense!  Jon kept asking me to find out if we needed to find a closer hospital because we both thought I might need to deliver before we got to the hospital! Getting there usually takes 30 min. and  there could be traffic!!!  Good thing it was not rush hour and we made record time in 15 minutes!!!  And yes, sometimes when your water breaks- it does go everywhere!!!

We arrived at Women's hospital with my Dr. already there and ready to go.

Checking in and most likely having a contraction by the look my face!

I only measured 6 cm which really surprised me because of the intense contractions (with Allie, they didn't get that way until I was a 9 and almost pushing).  The nurse explained that once your water breaks, contractions are a lot more intense.  I progressed to 9cm within an hour, but then was not changing…  I told the nurse I had about 20 more minutes to last through the pain with out an epidural and after that time came and went with no change I NEEDED that epidural!  I usually have a very high pain tolerance and did fine with Allie, but this time was DIFFERENT!  Poor Jon was not able to ease the pain no matter what he tried- it was bad….

Jon took this after I got the epidural!

My parents had stayed at the house to put Allie to bed and luckily, Allison had volunteered earlier to help with anything!  I had called her as we were leaving to come over so my parents could come up to the hospital.  She was SO sweet to stay at the house all night so my parents could be with us!  Thank you dear friend!!!

Even though I knew that getting  an epidural would slow things down, there was no way I could do the contractions at 1 1/2 min apart for the next hour or how ever long it would take.  And I am SOOO thankful I did, because Baby was not descending all the way and I was stuck at 9cm for the next 4 hours! But, that did give both our parents enough time to get to the hospital so they could be there to meet him!

Pops waiting for baby!

At 11:30 my Dr. said I had 1 hour to wait to see if he would descend and I would finish dilating otherwise he would have to do a C-section!!  He was concerned that he would stay stuck and then it would become dangerous to him.  I am not sure how we went from no contractions to contractions every minute, to thinking I was going to deliver in the car, to then facing a c-section!  Too much too fast for me to even have any emotions!  Jon and I prepared ourselves for it  and our parents prayed for the best in the waiting room.

At 12:30 the nurse checked me and said he had moved down some…  DR. OK'd us to give him 30 more minutes!  Then the Dr. came in at 1:10am and said "let's try pushing!!!!"  YEA!  After two sets of pushing; Kyle Zeke was born!  He had the cutest cry as it was more of a pathetic whimper/cry than an all out scream.

He looks HUGE!  and he was not screaming loudly- it was a cute whimper 

He looks very mad in this picture!

Or in these! 

OK- this is a little better!

Getting his footprints

We realized that we did not get many pictures of our family holding him! 

 He was very healthy and never even needed any time time in the NICU!  Such a HUGE answer to prayer and it was such a blessing!  Both our parents were there to see him afterwards and Allie got to meet him the next day.

Meeting Kyle for the first time!

Showing her his umbilical cord

He looks like an old man in this photo!

Sweet face boy!

We took awhile to finalize his name as we struggled with wanting a great meaning and a fun name as well- plus it had to fit him!  Kyle means either "narrow piece of land or victory" (depending on origin) and Zeke is short for Ezekiel which means "My God will strengthen".  And since this pregnancy and his life so far has been nothing short of victory  and it was only through God that we could have made it this far- it seemed very fitting for him!

Debating on names!

You can see there is no name written on it!

Thumb sucker!!

HUGE feet and they were very wrinkled!

I got to go home Wednesday evening which was actually 36 hours after he was born even though he was born on Tuesday!  My mom came with Allie the first day and my brother and his friend came to visit the next.

 I was not much into visitors because there is just so much going on!  I was glad to get home because the food there is awful and I was tired of people poking me and waking me up all the time!  Going into the newborn stage starting off missing one full night of sleep is not the best way to begin! Allie spent the night at my parents house, so when she came home from school the next day she got a surprise!

Getting the security tag off his umbilical cord so we can go home!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and help in this journey so far and we are excited to be able to share him with you in the coming months!  Let the journey begin!...