Walker's Arrival...

A picture of Walker's wonderful daddy!! Jon has been wonderful...changing diapers, burping, changing clothes...I don't know what I'd do without him!!

Our first family photo!! I was so puffy from all the fluids they gave me!

Waiting out the contractions...

He's here!!

Many of you may or may not know the story of Walker's birth but I wanted record of it so I thought I'd post it on here for those who are interested. I had a routine doctor's appointment on Tuesday, April 6. My appointment was at 9:00 a.m. and we knew from the previous week that my blood pressure had been a little high. My doctor had scheduled an biophysical ultrasound just to check out baby and make sure all was well since my blood pressure was up. Baby looked great on the ultrasound and scored 8/8 on the biophysical profile. However, he was measuring a little small and my amniotic fluid was low so the doctor decided it was best for him to go ahead and induce me. My bp was also still a little high but not too bad. I was 39 weeks 1 day so he felt very confident that Walker was better off on the outside than inside. Of course by this point we were very ready for him to be here but to hear our doctor say that it was time to have a baby made us very anxious!! :)

We ran home and got a few things together (we had already packed our stuff in the car prior to the appointment but couldn't resist running back home to double-check things) and checked into the hopsital about 11:00. I got into a room and hooked up to the monitors and got an IV started and my doctor tried to do an experiemental procedure to help me dilate faster. However, since I wasn't dilated at all he couldn't even do the procedure so we had to move on to the next option. He started me on cervadil and said that he would let that work through the night and if all looked well on Wednesday morning, then we would start Pitocin. Cervadil was used to get my cervix to soften so that the Pitocin would start contractions and allow me to dilate. So I spent the rest of the day Tuesday on Cervadil and the day flew by. My mom came up that afternoon to be with us at the hospital but we basically were just there letting the medicine work. Wednesday morning around 6:00 my doctor came by and checked me. The Cervadil had worked like it was supposed to and I was ready to start the Pitocin. They started that about 6:30 and increased the amount every 30 minutes. About 9:00 the doctor told me I was two cm and he broke my water. By about 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday I had started having contractions and was starting to dilate. My doctor examined me about 12:00 p.m. and and he said I could have the epidural. I immediately said I was ready for it!! Throughout my pregnancy the epidural was the one thing that truly terrified me about labor but at that point I couldn't have cared less!! The guy came in and gave me the epidural and it didn't hurt a bit...and I felt much better after that point! Around 3:30 I started feeling lots of pressure and like I needed to push. I told my nurse and she checked me again and I was dilated to between 9-10 cm. My nurse frantically started moving around getting things ready while telling me to breathe through the contractions and to try not to push!! That was the hardest part of the whole thing! Jon had been out in the waiting room talking with family and when he came back in the nurse was scrambling around the room and told him that I was ready to push. The room was quickly prepared and my doctor was called. He got there and I started pushing and about 30 minutes later Walker was here!! I was very lucky that it was such a short labor. And not nearly as bad as I had thought it would be!! :) We were able to bond with him right away and I was able to nurse in the delivery room. It was such a sweet time to spend with just Jon, Walker and myself. We stayed in the hospital until about noon on Friday.

We are now just enjoying our time at home with Walker and trying to figure out the whole parenting thing! ;) Keep praying for us!!