The Story...

We celebrated the 4th of July with a parade in the morning and games and ice cream in the evening, all while listening to so many fireworks that for 2+ hours it sounded like a war battle was going on right outside our window! We decided to head to bed and as I laid down in bed around midnight, I felt a little leak, ran to the bathroom and sure enough my water had broke! We finished packing our bag, cleaned up the apartment and got some last minute things ready for Naomi. Within a 1/2 an hour, contractions were coming steadily every 7-10 minutes!

I told Josh to head back to bed and I'd wake him up if I needed him or when I was ready to head to the hospital. Around 3:45 I woke him up, woke my mom up, and ate as much food as I could handle (since they don't let you eat once you can get to the hospital...). Pop came to sleep on the couch so he could hear Nay if she woke up and we headed out.

When we got off the freeway onto the exit for the hospital, cop lights turned on behind us. I asked Josh if those were for us, "Yes." I asked if he was speeding, "No." We pulled over and sure enough the cop car pulled over behind us. A cop walked up on each side of us shining flashlights into the car. Josh rolled down his window and the cop asked where we were headed..."to the hospital, my wife is in labor." The cop looked over at me, I gave him a half smile and a little wave. He asked for Josh's license and inquired if we knew that none of our taillights were working. We had no idea...  Just when it was looking like he was literally gonna make us sit there and wait for awhile, he looked at me again and asked if we knew how to get to the hospital (I sure hope we do at this point...). We said we did and he let us go. Finally. :)

We got to the hospital and walked up to the L&D ward. I was 3.5 centimeters. This was such a relief because with Naomi I never got past 2.5 after a day of laboring. They checked us in and the baby's heart rate started doing the same thing Naomi's had, dropping on every contraction. They told me I needed to stay in bed, so I fought it for a little while, then gave in to the inevitable and asked for an epidural. It was 7am.

After initially working, by 8 I was back in the same amount of pain on my left side as I had been pre-epidural. I rolled onto my left side to get the medicine to 'drip' to that side more and pressed the button for a little extra dose. At 815, I told the nurse it wasn't getting any better so she told me to press the button one more time and she'd call for the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist showed up around 845 and told me that she could 'top me off' but if that didn't work she could only re-do the epidural if I wasn't too far along. As she's giving me the extra dose I hear a nurse say, "She's 10 and +1." I looked down and asked, "Are you talking about me?!?" Sure enough...with no pitocin this time (PRAISE THE LORD!!) I had fully dialated all on my own (and obviously quite numb in certain areas!). By this point the extra dose of meds was fully working and I could feel NOTHING. No pain, no pressure. The nurse left saying we would start pushing soon, and that if I felt the urge to push before she got back to send Josh out to tell someone. Feel the urge to push? Yeah right...I couldn't feel a thing.

At 9:45 the midwife came in, asked me to push on the next contraction, and after one push said, "Yep, you're ready, let me get suited up." So for the next 10 minutes, her and the nurse prepped everything while casually talking to us. We asked the midwife if Josh could help deliver and she was all for that. So the pushing began...7 minutes later, she looked at Josh and asked, "Well are you gonna help?" His eyes got big and he got right in there. This is what I remember hearing:

J: Do I need gloves or anything?
M: It's your family's fluid, just get in here.
J: Ok!
M: Ok there's the head, put your hand there...do you see that?
J: Yep
M: That's the shoulder, now the armpit, reach under there and pull gently...ok keep pulling...grab here...pull gently...
 J: Chels, we have a son! (while choking back tears)

Such a special moment!! And Mr. Jonah Mark was here and received his name along with lots of snuggles. We had a son. And Naomi had a brother. Our parents had a granddaughter and a grandSON. So crazy, so fun, so overwhelming, so wonderful. Jonah, we loved you from the moment we saw you.