The baby was moving around fine, kicking like a champ, but still no progress from her doctor's appointment a week before. At the doctor's office, Dr. Richer gave us the same news, "slightly dilated, a little soft," but really nothing to write home about. It was time to make a plan!
"Come back Thursday night, and we'll get you going with some Cervadil. Hopefully that will kick-start things like it did the last time."
There it was, finally a light at the end of the tunnel. It was now time to prepare for what Sandy and I had been most worried about going into this birth... "where is Izzie going to stay?"
We decided that Izzie would stay at Sandy's brother, Jon's house with his girlfriend Jane and their new three-month-old baby Kay. It seemed to be a great choice because Izzie is clearly smitten with "Uncle JJ" whenever she sees him. It could be that he pulls her around The Plantation in the Radio Flyer wagon that Jon restored for his Dad, Frank, a few years back. (I think it was actually Frank's wagon as a child). We knew Izzie would be in good hands with Jon and Jane.
So, we dropped off Izzie, said our good-bye's and headed to the hospital. We checked in at around 7 pm on August 20, 2009 and as we were in registration Sandy was getting very uncomfortable. I thought "woohoo, here we go". However, after being admitted to our room, and the doctor administering the Cervadil at 8:40pm that kept Sandy stuck in bed for two hours on a monitor, which she wasn't too happy about, and going to bed hours later with nothing more than a few "kicks" we knew we were in for the long haul.
We woke up Friday morning again with no progress. Then at 9 am nurse Debbie started the pitocin drip to continue the induction process.
At about 10:30, Sandy rolled onto her side and started to slip off to take a little nap and I started to do the same since the only job I had was to wait. About 30 minutes later, I opened my eyes slightly to look at my wife laying on the bed in front of me in the hospital and her eyes were WIDE OPEN!
"There was one!" Sandy said, as a look of shock came across her face like what the hell was that? Then all of a sudden, Sandy's face changed and she felt a sharp pain and said, "I think I might have just peed."
The nurse looked over at Sandy and said, "Hold on, let me go get something to test it to see if your water broke!"
Indeed it had! At 11:03 am it was confirmed, WE WERE IN LABOR!
From there, the contractions got alot stronger and more regular and Sandy could really feel them. She said they were much stronger and more painful than she could remember with Izzie. So, as soon as it started to get painful Sandy said the words most women long to say when they are in labor, "I want my epidural!"
Within the half-hour, the anesthesiaologist came in and administered the epidural and slowly the pain subsided. Finally, Sandy got her epidural. She missed her chance to get it with Isabelle and she wasn't going to let it happen this time!
However, after an hour or so of the pain killing medication kicking in, Sandy couldn't feel anything below her waist. Whenever, the nurses or doctor needed to examine her or have her move, she couldn't move her legs at all. The funny part, was whenever Sandy saw her leg move, it really weirded her out because she couldn't feel it. She actually asked them to stop the medicine on the epidural so she could feel "something" because she wasn't feeling anything and felt like she wouldn't be able to push at all.
At around 2:30 pm, they turned off the epidural medication. The baby had worked its way down enough that she could start pushing soon, however, in the state she was in, she wouldn't have been able to do anything.
By 3:25 pm Sandy could start to wiggle her toes and actually slowly gained feeling and movement in her legs and by this point the baby was in position for her to start to push.
Slowly and methodically our new nurse, Deb, began to coach Sandy to push. The great part is, in between contractions and pushing, Sandy and myself along with the nurse were cracking jokes, talking about random stuff and giggling, which made it a really great experience. At one point Nurse Deb even told Sandy to slow down on the giggling because when she laughed, she pushed and "the doctor hates when he's not here to catch!"
Sandy continued to push during the contractions to get the baby in place and by 3:50 pm Dr. Richer came into the room and said "I think we're ready to have baby!".
A few more strong pushes and the head was out and one last strong push by my amazing wife and.....
"Oh My God It's A Boy!" Sandy said and the baby came out and was put on her stomach. Tears filled Sandy's eyes as well as mine as we welcomed our new little baby into the world.
Now, all of this happened so fast that I never actually go to see "The Merchandise", so, I didn't know if Sandy was just seeing things or not. It was a good five minutes after they rubbed him down, cleaned him off and flipped him over that I actually saw confirmation that we had actually had a boy.
Aidan Charles Beauregard, August, 21, 2009, 4:06 pm - 9 pounds, 1 ounce, 22" long! Our Little Big Man had finally joined the party!
I really couldn't beleive we had a boy. I was kind of in shock to be honest. I had set in my head that I was going to have all girls. For whatever reason, I just thought that was the way it was going to be. It was pretty amazing to know that I had a little boy to go along with my beautiful little girl.
Five hours of Labor. Not too shabby! Sandy again was absolutely amazing. No issues, no problems with the delivery and just as with Isabelle, texting people minutes after she gave birth to let them know. As soon as we got down to the post pardom room about an hour and a half later, Sandy was walking around like nothing had happened. The woman is truly amazing!
The entire experience was completely amazing and so drastically different than when we had Isabelle, but just as exciting. Finding out that Izzie had a baby brother was definitely a tear-filled moment for Mommy and Daddy.
The Nurses at the hospital were absolutely amazing and made all the difference in the world at making us (especially Sandy) feel comfortable with everything that was going on. Our Doctor, Dr. Richer was great, we were all cracking jokes right up until the time Aidan was born. It was a great experience.
It was also pretty fun posting our progress to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. It was kind of neat reading people's reactions to our progress. I even posted pics of Little Big Man within 20 minutes of having him from my phone. Technology really is amazing.
Here are a few pics of our new little guy as well as Sandy, and big sister Izzie. More will come very very soon!
Thanks to Everyone for all of your love and support!
-JB
