He’s here.

James Matthew Pence was born October 18th, 2010 at 8:53am.  He weighs 8lbs 13oz and is 20 1/4in long.  The nursery just came and grabbed him, so I have both  hands to type!  Here’s the story before I forget:

I woke up to a painful contraction at 5:30 this morning.  Occasionally I’ll have one lonely contraction that hurts (and sorry if this is TMI, but I was thinking it may have been gas).  But when I got another and then another, I called my mom and had Matt start getting ready to go.  We managed to leave about 6:40 for the hospital.  We caught every red light.  :)  Even though it’s a work day, I think traffic could have been a lot worse.  We made it around 7am to the hospital.  They put me in a triage room (ha!).  Soon the nurse checked me and moved me to a regular room.  She had trouble telling how dilated I was; apparently my bag of waters was “hanging out.”  Lovely image, don’t you think?  Anyway, the doctor on call came in and pronounced me 7-8cm dilated, +1 station (I think that’s what she said), and 100% effaced.  The contractions were definitely hurting me at this point, but I was still getting some rest time in between.  Dr. Zavala was on call today.  So at the Care for Women practice, there are eight doctors: 4 men and 4 women.  I’ve had three deliveries, using each of the women doctors except my own!  Dr. Zavala left to assist in a c-section, but told the nurses to pull her out if I got serious.  I got all hooked up and bracleted; I threw up a time or two, had them turn on the fan.  Then everybody left me alone in the dark to labor.  They also left some paperwork with my poor husband to fill out.  It’s still not done.  :)  I labored and cursed a little as the contractions got stronger and closer together.  I took a picture of the first “really really bad” one on the monitor.  Ow.  A lot.  I probably should have started pushing around then, but I was dawdling.  It felt better when Matt put pressure on my back, which I made him do instead of filling out his forms.  :)  At some point we called the nurses because I was really hurting and definitely headed somewhere.  They came in and got ready and pulled the doctor out of surgery.  I had a couple more contractions (or what felt like a million right on top of each other) to bring him down a bit.  Then I really felt the urge to push so I did.  (I won’t write about all the crying and whining I did during this time.)  It took three contractions of pushing I believe.  I could really feel it working this time – it was cool.  They actually told me to hold off so the doc could get her gloves on.  Everybody worked very quickly!  Then he was born!  He cried pretty much right away.  He scored an 8.9 on the apgar.  It was a little low (lower than the girls anyway) mainly for his color; he didn’t pink up as fast as they would have liked I think.  I got to snuggle with him for a few minutes, then they cleaned him up and weighed him.  8lbs 13oz – I could not believe it!  That is quite a bit bigger than the girls!  Matt held him for a little while when they were getting me sewed up and cleaned up.  When I got him back he latched on easily and nursed forever!  I ate my breakfast too, and at some point the nursery came and took him.  He should be coming back soon!  My mom just got here with the girls and they’ve seen him through the nursery window.  We are waiting patiently for him, watching HGTV.  I’ll post pics soon, maybe now.

For Your Information:

Joanna was born 12 days before her due date and weighed 7lbs 4oz.

Natalie was born 3 days after her due date and weighed 7lbs 9oz.

James was born on his due date and weighed 8lbs 13oz.  Oh my!!