Confessions of a Southern Mom: connor reid

so on friday july 10th, my parents arrived to be "on call" to watch parker as we waited for the big day to arrive. little did i know that this timing would be PERFECT. my actual due date was july 18th, but when i saw the dr. on july 8th, i was 3cm and 50% effaced. going to be friday night, i felt a little crampy in my lower back, but didn't think too much of it since i had back pain my entire pregnancy. however when i woke up saturday morning at 5:15 for my 10+ trip to the bathroom, i noticed i was having some contractions. nothing too unusual because i had been having those since about week 24 as well. but as i got another one rather quickly after the first, i remembered that i usually didn't get braxton hicks first thing in the morning, plus these felt "different". i told brandon i was going to take a shower, just in case and he should just go back to bed. but then i changed my mind as yet another contraction started. i knew this was the real deal.....it may not happen today, but it would definitely be happening in the next 48 hours. so i showered and finished packing my bags as contractions came and went. i called my doctor and he said to come on in!

we arrived at the hospital around 7:45am. the nurse checked me and still 3cm 50%. boo. she said not to bring our bags in just yet. double boo. so then the wait began. i needed to be seen by my doctor in order to get admitted and get my IVs going. i wasn't on his list until after he made his rounds. my contractions luckily were still bearable. so as 9:15 approached and brandon's BIG appointment with the guy and his wife that conveniently came into LAST NIGHT just to meet with brandon to look at some lakefront property, i said sure go ahead and meet with him, just don't go too far until i know what's going on when i see the doctor. luckily his client was staying 5 minutes from the hospital at the Westin.

as luck would have it, right after brandon leaves and i'm alone in the hospital room, my contractions go from ok to crazy painful! i call the nurse as i'm fighting back tears to see if we could get the epidural ordered, but she can't do that until i get my IVs going and she can't do that until i get admitted by the doctor! so for the next hour and a half or so as i waited for my doctor to finish his rounds and confirm i was really in labor, i fought off some crazy contractions with NO DRUGS. funny enough, i actually thought to myself that hey even with no epidural, i can do this and i still want more children!

i have no idea what time it was when the doctor finally showed up in my room, but i couldn't tell you how happy i was to see him. thankfully he confirmed that yes, i was indeed in labor and ordered my epidural. thankfully the anesthesiologist showed up rather quickly. i feel like CMC does a great job sending in their aneshesiologists right away as with both labors they always showed up right away. the epidural took a little manipulating as it didn't take to my left side the first time around--apparently this is common if you've had an epidural before. but once it was worked out, i was happy as can be. love me some epidurals! again, i thought, yeah, i can do this with baby #3 :-)

my labor progressed just like the text book says, water broke on its own and next thing i knew it was 3:00pm and i attempted "trying" pushing. apparently i push pretty well because after just 9 minutes out pops connor! what a blessing he is and we are so thankful to have another beautiful healthy baby! thank you Lord!

here are some pics we took of the day.......

me...this must have been AFTER the epidural :-)