the most intense day of my life!

Barrett made his appearance :) tj and i are so blessed and in love with our little man!

on tuesday june 7, i woke up thinking i had peed the bed. it just kept coming so my genius self finally figured out my water had broken. so i called tj home from work... while i was waiting for him to show up, i showered and got my things together thinking no more water was going to come out. WRONG. it just keeps coming and coming. all the way to the hospital. we got to ogden regional around 830 am and i got checked in and set up in my room. at about 9 i got an IV and fluids and pitocin going. i had hoped to have a natural birth but because i wasn't contracted and because of risk of infection, we had to get things going with pitocin. i was a tough banana for about 8 hours. then i just couldn't do it anymore. i got an epidural at about 415 pm. relief.  i felt so much better. i had gotten a shot of fentanyl earlier but it didn't do anything for my pain and only made me really sleepy. after the epidural, i had still not progressed much. i think i was at a 4 or 5 but that was it. i was so out of it. i wasn't really talking to anyone and still can't remember a lot of what happened. i was in this weird "zone" i don't even know how to explain it. i continued to labor and still didn't make much progress. i was feeling discouraged and feared that i was going to have to have a c-section. i threw up several times and that was miserable too.... it did help me progress a little bit tho which was a blessing in disguise. at around 11 pm, dr. alejo came in to see how i was doing. i broke down in tears from exhaustion and fear. he asked what i wanted to do because Barrett's heart rate was decelerating with my contractions. he said i had been at this for a long time and if i wanted a c-section he would do it. he also said we could infuse fluid to make him more comfortable which would hopefully help him. i was so tired but i said i wanted to continue. so that's what we did. he was bouncing back and forth between me and another girl at mckay dee so he came back a little later (i think 3 or 4 am ish) and checked and i was like a 7. so he said he was going to go home and rest because he had been up all day and night. at a little after 4 am, i was feeling incredible amounts of pressure so the nurse checked me and i was complete! she did some practice pushes with me to see if she should call alejo back and she decided she should. she kept pushing with me for a while and said alejo was on his way. then she said to stop pushing haha. guess he was closer than the doc was :) when alejo got there, he said let's see how she does when pushing and instantly said "ok i'll get dressed" yay! i don't remember how many pushes or how long but i know it wasn't too many because he came at 5:54 am :) they put him on my chest and i was rubbing his back and his belly and i just cried with joy. i was ecstatic. this is what i was meant to be: a mom. i was so happy :) tj was pretty happy too ;) they took him and cleaned him off and weighed and measured him. he was 7 lbs 8 oz and 20.5 inches long. come to find out, the cord was wrapped around his neck a couple times which is what slowed labor a bit because he kept spinning around in there.

anyway, he's ten days old now and he's doing really well! he eats constantly and sleeps a ton. i have to wake him up at night to feed him which is actually nice. don't worry, i'm sure it will change soon.... :)

tj and i are so thankful for all the prayers and love and support. we are so excited about this journey we have started together! it's crazy how much changes in a year.... :)