Logan's Birth Story

I'm a little late in writing this, seeing as Logan's almost 7 weeks old - but, hey, with three kiddos I'm lucky to get a chance to go potty, much less blog! :-) So, I may be a bit off on my time estimations, and even my overall story telling, but I'll give it a shot!

After weeks of waiting for little mister to come out on his own, the time finally came to just set a date for induction. Back in March I would have sworn that he was going to come on his own, and come early. Strong contractions started on March 11th, which sent me in for a three hour stay in Labor & Delivery to calm them down. Even the L&D nurses thought I wouldn't make it to my due date. Oops, guess we were all wrong! April 16th came and went, and luckily Dr. Byerly knew my desire to try to have this kiddo by myself. We waited a week extra and then decided to go ahead and schedule a date. I was getting so huge and so miserable! We set the date for April 24th! Clayton's birthday is all odd numbers (3-31-11) and Reagan's is all even numbers (4-18-12) so I wanted to keep with that trend and have Logan's be all even as well (4-24-14). Thursday would be the day - just like Clayton too!

The alarm went off at 4am - yuck - and we got up and drove to the hospital. Nana was already in town so she stayed behind with the sleeping toddlers until they could go to daycare in the morning. We checked in to the hospital, and get this - walked ourselves up to L&D. I thought they had to come get you.... oh well! When we got upstairs the nurses got us all situated and then checked to see where we were at. I was still a solid 4cm dilated, but not hardly effaced. They called my OB and he said to start the pitocin. I'm pretty sure we started it before 7 because I think the night crew was still there, but who knows! Contractions started coming regularly and were pretty dang strong. I want to say that Dr. Byerly came and broke my water around 8:30.... all I know is that after that contractions were intense! I labored as long as I could and finally gave in and asked for an epidural. I was so scared because of the horrible experience that I had with Reagan. They assured me that the Dr's that were both there were excellent. The Dr that knows Carylon was unfortunately stuck in surgery and I was afraid if I waited any longer it would be too late. I was almost a 7 by the time they came to give me the epidural. I was proud of myself for laboring so long! It was exhausting and so painful. The epidural hurt like hades but after it was in I felt amazing! I had full sensation in my, err, nether regions, but was not feeling the pain of my contractions. I knew when I was having them though which was cool. Dr. Brian was amazing and really treated me with the utmost care. We had warned him of my horrible experience before and so he made sure (even checked on me after delivery and the next day before we were released) that I was ok. I think that they told me it was about time to push a little after noon. I remember thinking Dr. Byerly would probably rather be eating lunch, haha. The first few pushes with Nurse Allison made a LOT of progress.... maybe too much! She had me stop so that Dr. Byerly could make it! A few pushes later, and after laughing at how much hair he had, Logan was born at 12:41pm! He immediately started crying - an amazing sound strangely enough! I had no tearing so it was an easy post-delivery as well! HOORAY! They took him to be weighed and we couldn't believe when they said he was 8 pounds 8 ounces! Our biggest baby by a pound! He was also 21" long so he beat the other two by 2"! Big boy! I knew he was done cooking in there! ;-) I was glad to have had my awesome 'birth team' in there once again - Darren, my mom, and my MIL Andrea. It was awesome to have them all there!

Logan was by far my easiest delivery. I don't know whether to attribute it to the fact that I had "been there done that" or what, but we sure were glad to have such an easy and quick process - and a healthy baby boy!!!! Not 30 minutes after delivery I had them bring me a huge cheeseburger, fries and a DP. I was starving! That was the best meal I've ever had! Haha, not really, but it was delicious! I felt great after delivery too - not like after the other two were born. Logan nursed right away and did an awesome job. He was a "bobby baby" right from the start though! They took Logan for all of his vitals while I finished up recovering and getting my legs to feel again! ;-) Not long after I was able to walk to the nursery and then walk to postpartum.

Our stay in the hospital was short and sweet! We were dismissed after lunch the next day! They said that now they do a checkup shortly after, instead of waiting until the baby is 2 weeks old, so you can go home sooner. Logan was healthy as can be too which was awesome! He nursed great the entire time we were in the hospital and slept well too! We let the nurses take him overnight so we could rest - errrr, we tried - which helped a little. The big kids got to come see Logan both Thursday and Friday. They were pretty excited! Clayton asked how he got out of my belly, and then said "Oh yeah, your pupeck! (belly button)" HA! The kids mostly just wanted to eat McDonalds and play though and weren't really concerned by the fact that there was a new baby around!

We are so blessed to have three beautiful, healthy children. I love that they were all born in the same hospital. We even had the same push coach nurse for both Logan and Clayton! Life with three has been nothing short of crazy, but we have loved every minute. Thank you, Lord, for such amazing gifts.