Baby Mason joined our family on August 9, 2013 at 2:02 p.m. Weighing in at 8 pounds 9.8 ounces and 21.5 inches long, he wins the award as our longest baby, but not the heaviest (he was .2 ounces lighter than Carter). Arriving just one day before his due date, he also wins the award of my longest pregnancy. Although I would consider all of my labors to be pretty easy, I've decided that he also wins the award for the worst labor (we won't hold that against him though!). So, here is his birth story, along with all the pictures.

About a week and a half before my due date I scheduled an induction date of August 9th. I was done with being pregnant, but I also wanted to have the baby and be home before school started on the 14th. Since my actual due date was the 10th, that gave me up until the last minute to have him without being induced. He waited...until the last minute. The evening of the 8th we were making last minute preparations and enjoying our last night as a family of four when I noticed I was having some contractions. I didn't pay much attention to them until bed time when they were getting a little stronger and uncomfortable. Although I really didn't want to be induced, I was excited to be able to enjoy one more night of sleep and be able to wake up, shower, do my hair and makeup, and have a baby during the day. But, babies like to throw your plans out the window right from the beginning. I tried to sleep, but with contractions every 8-10 minutes, I really wasn't sleeping. I didn't want to have to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, so I tried to lay really still to keep things from progressing too quickly. I may have drifted off a few times, but by 4 a.m. the contractions were strong enough that I knew I needed to get up and really track them. Over the next hour they went from every 7-8 minutes to every 5-6 minutes. I just needed to make it 3 more hours until my 7:30 am induction appointment time. I decided to shower and get ready to go in case we needed to leave early. Turns out the shower and doing my hair and makeup were a great distraction from the contractions and may have even helped slow them down a little. So, dressed with full makeup on and curled hair due to my extra prep time, I had made it to morning!

I have to say it was really nice to have things planned. There was no call to the on call doctor, no trip to triage to determine if I was going to be admitted or not, and the hospital staff was prepared and waiting for us. Upon arriving at the maternity ward the administrative person waved us into her office and took care of a few clerical insurance things before taking us to our room. I was surprised when we arrived in the room that my two nurses were already in there with the room totally set up and ready to go. I think we may have been a few minutes late and I felt kind of bad since everyone appeared to be waiting for us! They got things going right away with more paperwork, then getting hooked up to monitors and IVs. Then, it was what I expected, waiting around. We were waiting for my doctor to come check on me and decide what to do. Since I was already in labor (contractions still 5-7 min apart) we didn't know if she would break my water, start Pitocin, or do nothing and let things progress on their own. We never did find out what the hold up was, and we never did see her, but at 8:45 the nurses got the go ahead to start Pitocin slowly. The doctor finally made it to my room at about 11:30. She gave me the option of breaking my water, which I agreed to, but we decided to do it after an epidural. She was on her way to a C-section, so the plan was for me to get the epidural while she was doing the C-section, and then she would come right back. It was 2 hours before we saw her again. As she was about done in my room she mentioned to my nurses that she had another C-section at 2:00 pm (it was 1:30) that had been pushed back slightly. I was close anyways, but did NOT want her to go to that C-section before I had the baby. I paged the nurses back to my room at the first slight bit of pressure I felt. Luckily I was ready to deliver and my doctor was still around. They got everything set up and the delivery went smoothly.

It is hard to determine when labor actually began. I guess if I start from the first contraction it was 6:30 pm on the 8th which means my labor was about 19 hours. I would say contractions didn't really start getting active and painful until about midnight though. Looking back I wish the doctor would have come from the beginning to break my water, or I at least would have had her do it the first time she came to my room before the epidural. I think that would have sped things up quite a bit. None of that really matters though. We are just happy here is here, safe and healthy!