He is here...

For those of you still waiting for an update... Mason finally made it into the world. He came 2 weeks early, and was born at 8:36pm on July 19th, weighing 6lbs 2oz. Sorry I left everyone hanging for so long on the blog, but here is the story...

On Tuesday morning, around 5:30am my water broke. I went into the doctor's office at 8am because I really wasn't sure if my water had broken or not. I told Efe to go to work because I didn't think that it was really my water breaking. The doctor took a look and sent me over for delivery!

I called Efe right away and he was on his way to meet me at the hospital. I was starving and knew that they would not let me eat there, so I went to Panera Bread to get some food on the way. It was pretty funny because I was calling people telling them that I was in labor and going to the hospital, then I was saying "I would like a cinnamon crunch bagel please... to go." The person at the counter looked at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, but I knew it was going to be a long time before they would let me eat again.

Efe met me at the hospital and we checked in together. The beginning of labor went very slowly because I was having contractions but they were 7-8 mins apart. So, after a couple of hours, they decided to give me some medicine to make the contractions come stronger. They were quite a bit stronger. The first time the doctor checked me, I was 6cm dialated. The labor progressed very quickly until the end. I stayed 9 cm dialated for a while.

There were some problems during the delivery. Mason's heart rate kept dropping too low during the contractions. The doctor was very informative and she spent a lot of time in our room monitoring his heart rate. She told us that he wasn't going to be able to handle a long pushing session. He had to come out very quickly or they would have to take him by c-section.

When it came time to push, the doctor used a vacuum suction to help pull him out. The entire time I was pushing only lasted about 10-15 minutes, and we had a baby boy. The doctor told us that the umbilical cord had been in the way between his head and his shoulder, so it was causing his heart rate to drop every time I had a contraction. Because of the heart rate problems, someone from the neonatal intensive care unit came over to examine him immediately after birth. Luckily, everything was great. A healthy baby boy!

Here is a picture of him right after delivery. He was quite alert, but had some stuff in his eyes that they had treated him with. I'll be posting more pictures of him soon.