Zachary!

Yes Ladies and Gents, in case you haven't heard, Zachary Mike May was born December 17, 2011 at 2:50 pm.  He weighed 7 lbs 3 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.  He is super duper adorable as you can see and wow has life changed since he joined our family.  I am incredibly impressed with those women who are able to post their birth stories and baby photos within days of giving birth.  I am obviously not one of those.  It's not that I am not overly excited it's more the fact that I have had zero time or energy and if/when I did have the time/energy, I wasn't about to waste it on my blog, I used it for more important things, like sleeping.

So here is a summary of Zach's birth story.  The week leading up to his birth, I knew I was going to have Zach that week.  How? Well, I kept coming across passages in the scriptures that talked about how if you ask for those things in which you stand in need of, the Lord will provide.  Well, I needed to have this baby this week.  I was so miserable and in tears practically every day that he didn't come.  Plus, Tommy was done with school, I was done with work, and my parents have never spent an anniversary apart.  My mom was down helping out and was my doula and this was going to be their first anniversary apart.  I couldn't do that to them.  So Zach needed to come ASAP.

Well I started having steady contractions on Friday afternoon.  After a while they never progressed so I called the doctor and he said that if the contractions persisted but stayed the same for 12 hours, that I should go to the hospital and get checked.  At my last appointment I was at 2 cm, 90% effaced and his head was engaged. In fact, the doctor said his head was already in the birth canal!  Unfortunately, 12 hours later meant 4:00 am.  So we all tried to get some sleep around 9 pm and I was of course up till past midnight from nerves.  At 3:30 we woke up and checked the contractions and they were still the same.  So we showered, ate breakfast and headed to the hospital.  They checked my blood pressure and it was pretty high.  I was so scared and stressed out by this point.  I've never been to a hospital before for myself and only once or twice for someone else so I'm not really fond of them.  But I was only at a 2 still.  They kept me for another hour to check my blood pressure again.  It was still high.  It really came down to the fact that I was so incredibly nervous!! Later on when contractions got worse, my blood pressure was actually lower! 

Lucky for me, my high blood pressure made the doctor decide to break my water and start me on petosin.  I started to feel a bit uncomfortable and asked for an epidural knowing I could handle the pain now but worried about what it would feel like in a half hour.  The nurse said the anesthesiologist was in surgery and would be done in about 45 minutes.  Then the crazy painful contractions picked up.  The only way I got through them was knowing it would all be over soon! Once I got my epidural, I was only at a 3. I napped for about 2 hours and by then I was at a 4 almost a 5.  I was feeling well enough to play a game of phase 10.  Neither my mom nor Tommy felt that the woman in labor deserved to win. About half way through I felt pretty tired and was sick of losing so I decided after one more hand I would take a nap. But then the nurse came in and checked me and said, "It's time to push! You're fully dialated!"  I wasn't ready for that news so soon!  It only took 10 pushes and Zach was out. 



So that's our story.  Not incredibly eventful but I didn't want it to be.  Also, I love epidurals.  I have all the respect in the world for women who can deliver babies without them but I definitely have no desire to try anytime soon.  More about our life later.  It's time to go back to being mommy!