Good Things To Come: The Arrival of Jace Colton

After 41 long weeks, our sweet son has finally arrived! On Monday, January 26th at 6:26 a.m., they laid the most beautiful little boy on my chest and he stole our hearts away. We are completely smitten.

Since week 39, I had been fighting vague feelings of discouragement that baby wasn't here yet. Colt and I were anxious to meet him, and I was so ready to not be pregnant anymore. Little one was growing and growing (go baby go!), and although my pregnancy had been very smooth and relatively comfortable, I was starting to feel pretty over it. By week 40, it was hard not to feel upset as day after day passed by with no sign of baby. As my due date came and went, I found myself increasingly stressed out and frustrated. I may or may not have cried about it. I literally had no signs that baby was on his way, and was starting to believe that I was just going to be pregnant forever.

I went to a doctor appointment the day after baby was due, and my doctor wanted to schedule an induction for that weekend, January 24-25th. I was initially on board, but as the week went by, I realized I really wanted to experience what it was like to go into labor on my own, and I wondered if there was a reason baby wasn't out yet. Maybe he just needed a little extra time in there before he was completely ready to take on the world...but as the days ticked by and I remained very much pregnant, an induction started to seem unavoidable. However, I did have a slight glimmer of hope: my mom went exactly eight days late with all three of her kids, and thus far, our pregnancies had been pretty similar. I asked the doctor if we could give the baby at least a full eight days to get here on his own before inducing. Even though he was initially a bit reluctant, he agreed that we could push back the induction date to allow baby a full eight days to get here by himself. I was scheduled to check into the hospital Monday night, January 26th, to get prepped and ready, and they would start the induction process on Tuesday morning, the 27th.

At 3:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, January 25th (exactly seven days after baby was due), I woke up with mild contractions and couldn't fall back asleep. They were coming every ten minutes, but weren't super painful at that point. After I realized they were happening consistently, I called labor and delivery to be clear on what contractions should be like before heading to the hospital. The nurse told me when they started coming every five minutes for an hour and I couldn't talk or walk through them, we could check in to Labor and Delivery. They told me that it could take a pretty long time to get to that point, and the best thing to do would be to try to relax and go about my day, make sure to eat, and to casually monitor the contractions.

My cute mom was already planning on coming up that day to stay with us for the week and help out, but she left earlier then planned when she found out I was having contractions. By the time she got here, they were coming a bit more often and were slightly more defined and painful, but not by much. After a couple hours of alternately walking and massaging pressure points on my feet, the contractions started to get more intense, although I could still walk and talk through them. However, as the night went by, they got increasingly more intense and by 10:15 p.m., we were checking into the hospital. I was in a lot of pain and pretty scared about labor-for some reason, I was really worried something bad was going to happen to me and I wouldn't get to meet my little boy. Colton gave me a blessing before we left, which helped ease my fears a little.

In triage, we found out that throughout the course of the day, I had gone from 0 to 3 cm dilated, and those contractions had me doubled over every 2-3 minutes. My body had started to shake-my legs were quaking and my teeth were chattering. They aren't kidding when they say that labor hurts! I was admitted and given a room fairly quickly, where I asked to have the epidural as soon as I was allowed. They gave me some pain medication to hold me over until the anesthesiologist could come see me, which made me a little bit loopy but took the edge off a bit. At this point, I was in so much pain all I could think about was the next contraction, but after the epidural was in, the relief was almost instantaneous and I could finally get excited about the prospect of meeting our little man. Colton was amazing all day, talking me through the pain, holding my hand, and keeping me calm. The whole time, I kept thinking to myself of women who have to do this by themselves and how incredibly hard that would be. I couldn't have done it without C. He was so great, and for someone who hates blood and needles, surprisingly composed. I told him beforehand to prepare happy thoughts and memories to talk to me about during contractions-we talked about our wedding day, about Hawaii and how at certain hotels and resorts (according to my parents), you can pay a one-time $30.00 fee for one drink, and then receive unlimited free drinks for the rest of your stay. This made me incredibly thirsty for a smoothie, but all I got was ice chips :( Ha! I've already had three or four smoothies since being discharged yesterday.

For some reason, I was pretty sure the baby would be here by 7:00 a.m. (maybe because that is when my nurse told me her shift ended? I was a bit out of it). Colt and I tried to get some sleep while we waited for my body to get ready to push. I drifted in and out of sleep, but mostly I stayed awake-I was too excited and nervous to sleep, not to mention running on the adrenaline from earlier labor pain. The epidural was working perfectly, but all the fluids had decreased my contractions a bit and my rapid progress had slowed down. At 2:00 a.m., the doctor decided to administer a tiny amount of Pitocin to give my body a little nudge. At that point, I was at a 4. Two and a half hours later, around 4:30, I realized I couldn't get comfortable because my belly felt too hard, and there was a lot of pressure. My nurse came in to check on me, and I told her I was feeling a bit uncomfortable. When she checked me, she informed me I was feeling contractions, that I had gone from barely 4 cm to 10 cm in two hours; no wonder I was uncomfortable! The shaking I had experienced before the epidural was administered returned with a vengeance-I could hardly speak! They told me I was ready to start pushing. I called to Colt, who was sleeping on the couch, that it was time, and he sprang up in surprise. We thought we had quite a ways to go before I would be ready! I think all my shaking unnerved him a little, but he was excited and calm and so supportive. I was so scared to push! I just didn't know what to expect. Luckily, I had great nurses, and Colt was there, encouraging me and counting me through. Even though pushing was hard and got increasingly more intense, the atmosphere in the room was quiet and peaceful. Each push was getting us closer to our baby...ready or not!

After an hour and a half of pushing, our beautiful little boy was born at 6:26 a.m, exactly eight days after his due date. The nurses immediately noted that he looked so much like his daddy, which made me so happy. They laid my son on my chest and he immediately stuck his fingers in his mouth, just like he had done months earlier in an ultrasound picture. We looked at him, fully expecting that seeing his sweet face would help us decide between the two names we had picked out for him. Instead, we were at a loss-that little face was not an Eli, nor was it a Conrad. It took a full day before we landed on Jace: a name we had briefly discussed when we first found out I was pregnant, and never really thought about again. But it just seemed to fit him better, and we love it. I love hearing other people call him by his name; it makes it more real that we really have a son.

We are so happy to be home with JJ. He is such a good, sweet baby. So good and sweet, I'm fully expecting him to do a 180 and start crying inconsolably, or stop eating and sleeping...but hopefully that doesn't happen! For awhile, at least-I'm really enjoying these peaceful, quiet days at home with my boys. Jace is absolutely perfect and I can't believe that after all this time, he is finally here. Colt is absolutely in love; it is amazing to see him become such a loving, attentive daddy. When baby arrived, he couldn't stop smiling at him, leaning over to kiss his little nose and give him nuzzles. We are just enjoying getting to know him, laughing at his adorable newborn noises and funny faces, learning how to tend to his needs and work together. We've already had a few parenting noob moments (we've been peed on twice so far...and maybe JJ peed in his own face once.), but luckily Jace has been pretty patient with us. Sometimes I feel like he came out a lot better at this than me!