I know it's been more than the "couple of days" I said in my last post, but I wanted to wait until I had some new pictures to add as well.

Here's Owen's birth story, in two versions: brief and extended.

The brief version:

On Monday the 20th I went over to a friends house in the evening for a little Downton Abbey time. About 10 o'clock I started keeping track of my contractions, since they were semi-uncomfortable. Though they weren't getting closer together, they also weren't stopping. When I got up in the morning I was still having some, though they slowed down about mid-morning. Since they slowed down I decided to go ahead and go to work, knowing that my day was only going to be from noon until around 3:30. When I got off of work I went to pick up Calen, but ended up leaving him with Grandma, since it was looking like "baby" was going to be arriving in the "next 24 hours", as I said at that time. I got home about 4:30, right after Mark. By 5:45 we were leaving for the hospital, and Owen arrived safely at 6:25. Nothing like the marathon that was Calen's birth! :)

The extended version (with all the gory details):

After I started tracking my contractions on the 2oth, I kept an eye on them for about 2 hours. They weren't really consistent at that point; I'd have a contraction, then another 10 minutes later, then another 5 minutes later, then 7 minutes....etc. They were uncomfortable, but not bad enough that I had to move around, or couldn't talk through them. They did feel "different" then the Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been experiencing since halfway through my pregnancy. I had been checked twice in the last week though - once on the 15th, and once that morning, and both times my midwife told me I was only at 1 centimeter and 50% effaced. So I knew that even though I had been having contractions all weekend, they hadn't been accomplishing anything. After I got to sleep that night I woke up a couple times to a stronger contraction. When I got up the morning I thought that labor might be starting, though the timing of the contractions was still pretty inconsistent. Around 9:30 I decided I should let Mark, my work and Calen's grandma (and childcare) know that labor might be starting. That was enough to make the contractions start to slow down. They went from 6-12 minutes apart to 15-2o minutes apart. I had even told myself, "watch, as soon as you tell anybody you might be in labor it'll stop". :)

At that point I decided that I might as well go to work. I figured if I was going to be waiting for something to happen I might as well have something to distract me, especially since the contractions were slowing down and I knew I would only be working about 3 1/2 hours. I got to work at noon and wasn't really experiencing much in the way of contractions still. Around 2 or 2:30 they started to pick up again, enough to where if I had the chance to lean on a counter or something like that while it was happening I did. I could still talk through them though, if I had to (like having one when I was working with a patient). I left work at 3:30, pretty sure that this baby would be coming in the next day. I stopped by Mark's parents house to pick up Calen, and the contractions were bad enough by then that I wanted to stop what I was doing when they hit me. Not so bad I couldn't drive though. After talking to Mark's mom we decided I would just leave Calen there, since I was pretty sure we would be dropping him off later on that evening anyway.

I got home at 4:30, right behind Mark (I had called him to make sure he was home or on his way, since I didn't think it would be very smart for me to be home alone). I got in the shower since I thought the heat would be comforting during the contractions. They were still kind of irregular in timing, coming between 6-10 minutes apart. When I got out of the shower I told Mark we should turn on a movie for a distraction until it was time to go. At about 5 o'clock I started timing the contractions and writing them down, instead of just checking the time like I had been doing. Around that time I also text messaged a few people letting them know it looked like labor was coming. Between 5:15 and 5:45 my contractions jumped from painful - on my knees leaning against the couch and doing some deep breathing - to awful - loud moaning and getting snippy with Mark. :) They also went from 6-10 minutes apart to 2-4 minutes apart. About 5:30 I tried to eat a yogurt. Ate one bite and headed to the bathroom. Thankfully Mark was getting me a bag-lined bowl since I ended up ----------TMI alert---------- peeing, throwing up, and having a contraction all at the same time. Interesting combination...

By this point we were getting our stuff together to head out. I did have my hospital bag and infant seat in the trunk, with the carseat base already installed in the back seat. We still had a few things to grab though, so we got out the door about 5:45. By this point I was being very loud when my contractions hit. I don't think Mark knew what to do with me, since I had an epidural with Calen and was never very vocal during his labor. I also couldn't hold still in the car seat when they came. I'm pretty sure Mark was speeding a little bit as he drove to the hospital. :) When we pulled up I knew a contraction was right around the corner, so I waited a little, suffered through the contraction (while yelling "I can't do this! I can't do this! Etc, etc...), then got out of the car. Made it through the doors and around a corner before climbing on a bench on my hands and knees to suffer through another contraction (it's amazing how my inhibitions disappear when I'm in labor. :)). Made it to the L & D area, but since it's locked for security reasons by the time they buzzed us in I was in the middle of another contraction and again on my hands and knees on a bench. The nurses started to wonder why someone was just holding the door open so one of them came down to see what was going on. We got to the desk, they asked who my provider was and got a couple signatures (thank the Lord they realized filling out paperwork in detail was not going to happen at that point!). At this point the contractions were about every two minutes and sometimes they came two on top of each other. Once in a room they got me a gown and a specimen cup. Trying to change into the gown ended up with me on my hands and knees again (on the bathroom floor, no less!) with more contractions. I couldn't give them a urine specimen either. By the time I got out of the bathroom my midwife was in the room. When they got me up on the table all I could think was "I better not be at 2 or 3 centimeters!!!" When my midwife looked at me and said those magic words - "you're at 10" - I'm pretty sure I responded with "thank God..." Without going in to detail, pushing wasn't fun. I was hurting so much I couldn't focus at all, so I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything. Also she had me push differently then with Calen, so I was kind of re-learning how to do it. Strangely enough it felt like I pushed a lot longer this time then with Calen, even though I pushed about 45 minutes with him. What a relief when he finally came. I actually found out for myself that we had a boy, since nobody had said anything before he was handed to me.

He scored a 9 on his 1 minute Apgar, and came in at 6 lbs 12 oz, and 18 inches. I'm not sure his length measurement was accurate, because his doctor's office came up with something quite different. He had lost 8 oz as of his hospital follow-up on the 23rd. At his 1 week appointment he weighed 7 lbs even. At his 2 week appointment yesterday he weighed 8 lbs 3 oz., which leads me to believe he's eating enough.

Now if he would only sleep better...

As a reward for reading or scrolling through all that, here are a few pictures from the photo shoot Mark did with Owen on Monday.