Wow, What a Day!!

June 19th, 2008...the greatest day of my life.
I woke up early, with contractions every 8 minutes. It was 6:30 am then. Those quickly progressed, and became only 4-6 minutes apart - so I took a shower, and then I woke Cyle. After a call to the doctor, we were on our way to the hospital! In triage, we found my blood pressure to be high...147/101. (I was doing so well with it through the whole pregnancy so this kinda made me nervous)... They quickly decided to admit me - today would be the day! :-)
Once on the unit, my contractions quickly progressed, and became pretty painful (so we opted for the epidural). Cayden didn't like them either...his heart rate kept dropping down to the 80's (I can guarantee you this didn't help in lowering my pressure! I was a nervous wreck!) So after I was more comfortable with the epidural, they started Pitocin to get things going, and told me to change positions a little bit. Well, it was at this point that I am certain both Cayden and I had guardian angels watching over us...
I changed positions and suddenly felt tingling down my whole right side, became very dizzy, started seeing dark spots, and became very nauseous. The rest is a little fuzzy for me, but I guess they checked my pressure (80's/40's) and heart rate (which was also quite low i guess), put oxygen on me, changed my position again and stopped all of the medication. to say the least, I wasn't doing very well. And in turn, my Cayden wasn't doing well. His heart rate continued to drop into the 60's during and after contractions. At this point I was feeling a little better, and was now aware of his heart rate decelerations - the 20-30 seconds of each deceleration felt like an eternity for Cyle and I - our eyes didn't leave the monitor. My doctor then told me that an emergency C-section might be our only option at that point. She had her staff make sure the OR was ready if that's what needed to be done. These words scared me to death...not the surgery for me so much, but the fear that my baby was not going to be okay. With the meds turned off, his heart rate became more stable, so the decision was made to try them again and see how he would handle it. So that's what happened...and he was such a trooper!! He had very few decelerations at that point, and I began progressing VERY quickly! I think I went from 8-10 cm in a matter of 5 minutes...so we went forward with a normal delivery! It was quick, and it was an absolute miracle. Like I said...someone was watching over me and my new family in those hours...and I couldn't be more thankful for that! We have been blessed with a perfect angel (and I'm not doing so bad myself!) :-)
My angel arrived 7/19/08 at 7:15 pm. Weighing in at a hefty 7lbs 1 oz, 19 inches :-)
Enjoy the photos...there will be plenty more to come! I can't wait for him to meet every one of you!