Jacob Nathan Lewis.

He's here! 

Jacob Nathan Lewis was born on August 31, 2010 at 6:41am. 

He weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and measured 22 inches long. 

The action started the evening before when I started feeling contractions around 5:30pm. They were pretty strong, but 6-8 minutes apart. I thought I would ride it out for a while and see if they progressed. Brett was supposed to leave around that time for a concert. I told him to go, since I thought they were just going to stop again like they had done in the days before, but Brett decided to stay home. Good choice on his part. 

After about an hour, and Brett making a frantic call to my mother, I called the doctor and she said to go to the hospital. I called Aunt Pam and she came over to stay with Ethan, and Brett and I were off to the hospital.

The car ride over was not fun. The contractions started getting stronger and I was getting extremely uncomfortable. I was checked in around 8:00pm and my contractions started getting really intense and extremely close together. By the time they had moved me into the labor and delivery room they were a minute apart. Crazy!! 

By this time I was dilated to 4 and 50% effaced, and I said, bring on the epidural. The nurses had a heck of time administering the IV and every time they would my vein would collapse due to the contractions. It took them 5 tries to find a good vein. I don't like being poked that much. During that time I was in so much pain from the contractions I couldn't believe it. I have no idea how people do it without an epidural. I'm not as tough as I thought I was.

Once I finally did get the epidural, things slowed down a bit, but I was still progressing nicely. At some point, I think around 2:00am I was dilated to 8, the contractions were a few minutes apart, and then I just stopped progressing. After some time, they gave me a small dosage of pitosin to get things going and that did the trick. After having my water break about four times, throwing up, having the chills, and getting a few naps in, I was ready to push.

Lovely hair on my part, I know.

The nurse said she wanted to do a trial push before my doctor got there just to make sure we were headed in the right direction. So she told me to push as she counted up to 10. We made it to 3 and she told me to stop. Jacob was definitely on his way out and she wanted my doctor to be there for the delivery. As soon as my doctor got there, she had me start pushing, and 4 pushes later, out came Jacob. They couldn't believe how quickly it all happened. I couldn't either really. I mean the kid is huge! How on earth was I carrying so much baby in me?

Not the best photos, but it's what we've got.

From that point on everything has been going smoothly. All of Jacob's test came back great and the pediatrician said he looked wonderful.

We were released from the hospital the next day and life as a family of four has begun. 

When I have more time I will post more pictures from the hospital, plus post pictures of how life is different around these parts.