And he arrived! Finally!!

Mr. Joseph Gordon Jacob Calon was born on Monday, February 15th at 6:21 pm. He weighed in at 8 pounds 1 ounce and is 20 3/4 inches long. We are home from the hospital now and are very happy to be here. Alexandria is a very big fan of her brother except when he cries, then she has actually tried to push him off her lap! lol a heart stopping moment to be sure.

So here is how the whole ordeal went down, its long but not too graphic (I hope);

I woke up at 2:37am on Sunday with mild contractions. I waited and timed them at 5 minutes apart until 4:00am when I woke Pat up and we decided to go to the hospital. We got there at 5:00am and spent the rest of the day walking around the hospital. The contractions were going strong at 5 minutes apart all day long. We even left the hospital, in between medication doses, and went for lunch. Finally at around 3:00 I noticed the next contraction was late. They didn't come back! They had stopped after 11 hours! Oh I was so tired and frustrated! So home we went with instructions to come back if they got steady again.

I was tired that I prayed they wouldn't start again until I had caught up on some of my sleep. And my prayers were answered because I had a wonderful night sleep Sunday night.

Since I was already going in on Monday morning to get a non-stress test and some manual induction Dr Keller decided that we might as well step everything up and he decided to start the Prostaglandin. So on Monday we headed in with high hopes, because after the day we just had how could we be anything but optimistic. The Prostaglandin was administered and we were very pleased when the contractions started almost immediately. They were steady at 6 minutes apart and were uncomfortable. We tried walking and other stuff but when ever I would move the contractions either got further apart or they got less intense. So we waited and waited. By 1:00pm things were getting more painful and it was looking like it might actually happen! But at 3:30 the contractions stopped again!!!!!!!! Oh I was so angry! I was laying on the hospital bed, concentrating so hard, almost willing them to start again and they did!!

So by 4:10 they had started up again, 4:35 they were getting intense enough that I had to breathe through them. Linda ran out real quick to get something to eat. As she was leaving I was having a contraction which was followed very quickly and closely by 4 more. Each more painful then the last! So it went from a quiet little party to 3 nurses running around very quickly, getting the room ready for delivery. Linda came back at 5:10 and was surprised to see all the activity.

A quick side note; when I was in labor with Ally I dilated from 3 to 10 cm in 45 minutes. Which is very very fast. They were expecting as much this time around, which is why we spent so much in the hospital.

So I was in full blown labor at this point and was very lucky to have Pat there supporting me both physically and emotionally. Linda was so awesome feeding me ice chips and getting cold clothes for my face and neck. So I decided that I wanted some fentanyl. There was nothing on my chart so they had to call Dr. Keller and talk to him. He said he was on his way and would check me when he got there and see. They will not give you any sort of drugs, other than gas, after you are 7cm dilated because there can be respiratory problem with the baby after delivery. So Dr. Keller arrived covered in paint, he was in the middle of renovating his house, he checked me and said "well no time for fentanyl, you're 9 cm's". That was around 5:45pm and remarkably Joseph was born at 6:21.



We were stunned to see that he looked EXACTLY like Pat. He doesn't just have some very strong features, he is a mini version of his daddy. Right down to his HUGE feet! All three of us are so in love with our little guy. Enjoy the pictures!

40 Weeks

9 Months/40 Weeks/280 Days/6720 hours and it comes down to today... And nothing! Well not nothing really, just lots of what we've been dealing with for the past 2 weeks. Lots of contractions, some of them real, some of them Braxton hicks. I've had so many ups and downs lately I feel I've been on a really crappy trip to Disneyland. Yesterday was a BAD day. I had no energy to do anything. I sat around all day feeling sorry for myself. But I felt better when my Daddy and my Mommy came to visit! Even at almost 29 (yipes) you still need your parents!

So today was a new day and I had a much better attitude. Alex and I got up and went to Timmy's, visited Daddy (her's) at work, and did some last minute grocery shopping. When we got home I had lots of energy (oh my!) so I cleaned! My kitchen is spotless, minus the floor which I just can't do. My living room is spotless, minus the carpet which we just have to throw out! And I'm feeling great! If you can't tell I'm trying to clean this child out of me ;)

At my last prenatal, on Monday, I had gained 3 pounds! And even better I was 3 cm's dilated! Dr. Keller didn't think I'd have to come to my next appointment, which in on Tuesday. But we discussed what would happen if I did. The initial process was supposed to start at my appointment on Tuesday but Dr. Keller called this afternoon and moved everything up a day. So if I haven't had SJ by Monday morning we will be meeting Dr. Keller at the hospital at 9:00am. He will then try to manually induce labor (didn't work at the last appointment and I won't go into details about how they do it ;P). Then they are going to perform a non-stress test on Joseph. What is a nonstress test? This simple, painless procedure is done during pregnancy to evaluate your baby's condition. During the test, your healthcare practitioner or a technician monitors your baby's heartbeat, first while the baby is resting and then while he's moving. Just as your heart beats faster when you're active, your baby's heart rate should go up while he's moving or kicking. (taken from babycenter.com)
They are doing this to make sure that Joseph can handle the stress of me being induced. So if the manual induction doesn't work I will be back in the hospital on Tuesday morning and they will try prostaglandin, which is a form of induction, just a more mild drug. And if that doesn't work then I will be back in the hospital on Tuesday night and will have to go on "the drip" :( Not really looking forward to "the drip" but at this point I just want him out and I have a sneaky suspicion that Dr. Keller might be worried about how big Joseph is getting. He hasn't said anything but at my prenatal he did tell me that he was a good sized baby! No 5 pounder to be exact lol.

So Junior will be born by next Wednesday! That makes me happy! So my next post will definitely include pictures of our beautiful little boy. I can't believe how excited I am to meet him!

Have a wonderful Family Day long weekend, next time we blog we will be a family of 5! (including Bruce of course lol)

39 Weeks (9 Days to go)

Oh what a week its been. In my silly little almost 9 month pregnant brain I truly thought I'd have this baby by now, but nope SJ has other idea's. I started having erratic contractions on Wednesday after my massage. They were all over the place but didn't go away and were uncomfortable. They continued all of Wednesday night, all of Thursday and again on Thursday night. By Friday morning they were getting worse and I had only gotten about 4 hours sleep in total over the past 2 days. So I woke up at 6:00 and said we're going into the hospital cause something has got to give! We got to the hospital at 7:30 and since I'm GBS (group B strep) positive, they had to put in a IV to administer the antibiotics. Well the first 2 attempts ruptured my blood vessels, and boy did they hurt! Thankfully the nurse went and got someone else who did a better job on the 3rd attempt lol. So here I was all hooked up to the fetal monitors and contraction monitor and had 3 extra holes in my hands. But oh I was ready to have that baby! Both Pat and I were excited about bringing him home hopefully the next day! Then I noticed the contraction monitor hadn't recorded anything since the whole IV fiasco. So we watched and waiting... NOTHING!! Dr. Keller came in around 8:00 and checked everything out, but I hadn't dilated anymore and baby wasn't engaged anymore :( So they told me to wait an hour and gave me the antibiotics for the GBS. So we went home without a baby.


The good thing was I slept for 3 hours on Friday afternoon and have had a good night sleep ever since. The sleep was truly a life saver because I was so tired and in the worst of moods I couldn't imagine how poor Pat and Alex could have survived another day with me lol. So after some serious days of throwing myself a pity party I decided to get over it and try to be patient.

I had another prenatal again this afternoon and was reassured by Dr. Keller that if I made it till the next appointment he would attempt some "stuff". And if that didn't work and I made it to the next week we would then talk about induction. So I feel better knowing that in 2 weeks this will for sure be all done and over with lol.

One really good thing to come out of all this false labor is our attitude. When we were sitting in the hospital, waiting, we were calm, relaxed and even joking around. We knew what was coming and that it was going to suck, but we weren't focusing on that. Our focus was finally meeting Joseph and having him complete our family. It was really comforting to have that too look forward to and not be too scared of the labor to come.

So other than our Friday morning drama, everything is going as it should and we will again be hoping and praying that this week is our week and we will get to take our baby home soon. Oh and before I forget, one more reason I wanted so badly for SJ to be born last week was, now you're going to laugh, I can't spell February. Every time I go to write it I have to look it up on a calendar or spell check it. So I figured it would be much easier if he was born in January so I wouldn't spell it wrong one day soon and embarrass myself! There I've admitted it to the world so I'm absolved and cannot be held responsible for my future spelling infractions!


Hope you all have a wonderful first week of February (I just looked on my calendar when I was typing that ;P)