Ready or not, here I come!

Well, as you know, Owen Michael has arrived!  We are beyond excited to finally see what this little guy looks like, find out his personality, and see how his big sister interacts with him.  We just weren't completely prepared for his early appearance into the world.  I was due to have a scheduled c-section on November 1, which was seven days before my due date.  I woke up early in the morning, about 1:30, on October 31 with some cramping.  It wasn't hurting much and I had experienced this slight cramping before.  I was able to fall back asleep for about an hour and then the cramping would wake me up again....this went on until about 3:30.  I noticed the cramping becoming more frequent and I wasn't able to sleep at all.  I got online and googled "how you know you're in labor." :)  Everything I read said that if the contractions were a couple minutes apart and lasted for a specific amount of time, that I was most likely in labor.  I remember reading about this, but I just wasn't even sure if what I was experiencing were contractions...I hadn't felt any of this with Emery and I thought surely I wouldn't be feeling it eight days early with this pregnancy!  I decided to wake Travis up, called the hospital to explain my "symptoms," and then began the conversation of "is this really what we think it is?"  We got Emery into the car around 4:00, grabbed her some clothes, piled everything we thought we needed into the car, and started towards the hospital.  I could tell Travis was being careful about not hitting bumps or going too fast....well, we ended up running red lights and speeding to get there because I was now feeling a lot of pain.  Turns out it was a good thing we didn't dawdle at home any longer than we did because I was 10 centimeters dilated when we arrived at the hospital!!  Completely crazy!!  Travis called our friends to come get Emery....I had my bag packed and a plan for Emery once baby arrived, but I hadn't even thought about making a plan for her if this baby came early:)  I got my IV started, monitors for baby on my tummy, blood work drawn, and an order that I needed an epidural quickly!  I applaud those who can do this without any drugs at all...which I feel like I did go through the worst part of the pain without any pain medication because the epidural I received wouldn't work...maybe it was too little too late.  My doctor arrived and gave me the choice to try to go ahead and have this baby without a c-section, so I decided to try.  Epidural still not working and after two pushes, he wasn't moving down at all and his heart rate was dropping.  Travis and my doctor made the decision to go ahead with the c-section that I was planning to have.  I was wheeled down to surgery....the epidural still NOT working.  The anesthesiologist ended up having to do a different epidural to get me numb enough so I wouldn't feel anything during surgery.  At 6:37am on October 31, Owen arrived weighing 7lb 15oz and was 21in long.

Here are our first glimpses of our new baby boy!

Owen meeting his grandparents

(a ladies group at the hospital knitted these pumpkin hats for the babies born on Halloween...and probably those born during the month of November too)

Owen gets his middle name from his grandad

My friends Haley and Jenn and baby Jackson came to meet Owen

Our sweet baby boy is so snuggly.  It's so hard to put him down!

What a great big sister Emery already is!

Our first family of four photo!

Our first family photo at home...and we were so excited to be out of the hospital.  We had a great experience there, it's just more comfortable to be at home!