After church on Sunday I took my regular Sunday nap. When a knock on the door got me out of bed. It was our new bishop (my old boss) dropping off something for Brad. He asked how I was feeling and I had to pause because I felt a huge gush of water starting to run down my leg, and said "Actually I think my water just broke" both Brad and the bishops eyes went wide and then it was a scramble to the hospital. Brad was pretty excited and kept knocking everything over in our house including a bowl of popcorn trying to get everything together.
We made it to the hospital just fine. Since it is an hour ride to the hospital I thought it was going to be the longest hour of my life and I was pleasantly surprised that the ride went so smoothly. I checked into the hospital at about 5:30 p.m. and even though I wasn't feeling any contractions yet, according to the monitor I was having one every two minutes. I received an epidural when I hit 5 centimeters and up until this point I wasn't in too much pain until the anesthesiologist tried to put the epidural in. The numbing agent she used unfortunately did not work on me and I felt her try to put the epidural in. Very painful. So she got a different numbing medicine that worked a whole lot better.
I was dilating rather smoothly and Brad and I took the time we could to just rest. At this point I felt so lucky that everything was going so well and I wasn't even in any pain I could even sleep during contractions (I didn't do too much sleeping though because I was really anxious). At about 4:oo a.m. Monday morning my epidural wore off and I was really starting to feel the contractions and was in a lot of pain. An hour went by before the anesthesiologist came back with more pain meds and then I was back to being pain free.
At about 5:00 a.m. I reached 9 centimeters and the nurses thought I could have him any minute. Unfortunately at this point Carson decided to stop. It took 4 hours to go from 9 centimeters to 10. I was so exhausted by this point, but for the next 2 hours I was pushing for Carson to come out, but he was being very stubborn and would not come. The doctor finally had to use a vacuum to help him come out. So after 20 hours of labor Carson finally arrived.
Brad was amazing he stuck by me the whole time and was very encouraging even when I felt like I couldn't do it anymore.
It has been a full day now and Carson is just the most precious thing. He is very alert when he is awake, but has been sleeping for most of the day. My mom says he looks a lot like me when I was born but I can also see some of Brad in him. Brad and I instantly fell in love with him and are so excited to bring him home.
I can't believe my baby is already four weeks old! He is such a doll Brad and I just love him. He is such a wonderful baby. He sleeps really well at night and is awake and very alert in the mornings. His face is starting to get fuller and he loves to look at the ceiling fan. You can't tell from the pictures but Carson actually has a bit of a curl to his hair. He must have got it from the Clark side of the family.
