River Christian Henry

Yes, he is HeRe. He is BeAuTiFuL! And he is MiNe.

OK, I will give Ryan some credit too. :)

I know you just wanted to see a picture of him before I got to the boring stuff like how it all happened...

I was admitted to Castle Medical Center in Kailua, Hawaii on Friday, September 17th at 7:30 am to be induced. I was NOT very happy about this.

River was five days overdue at this point. He was chillin in his little cocoon. I was his incubator and he was getting bigger and bigger by the day. They told me to expect him to be between 8.5 and 9 lbs. I thought- no way. He's really not THAT big...

Here I was getting hooked up to the Pitocin.

My last pregnant picture. I'm HUGE! The reason I was so unhappy about being induced is because it makes for a "medical" birth. I had that with Hunter and was very sick all during and after his birth. Then I gave birth to both girls without ANY pain meds and it was a totally different experience. Difficult, yes. But well worth it!

Ryan demonstrating his thoughts on the childbirth process. Thanks babe. Love ya.

Ok- Are you ready for this story?

We arrived at the birth center at 7:30 am and I was not in a very happy mood. It's one thing when labor just happens and you're thrown right into it- it's clearly another when you are electing to go into that much pain. Knowing what's ahead of you and not knowing at the same time how severe it'll be b/c of the drugs (pitocin) involved. Anyhow, I was hooked up to pitocin and saline through an IV by 8:15 am. I came in already dialated to a 3 and 60% effaced- but had been that way for a couple of weeks. By 8:45 I began to feel the first contractions. They weren't very strong but they were more than I'd been feeling on my own. And that's how it went for the next TWO hours! It was SO boring. My mom was reading, Ryan was doing homework and I was just walking around with my little IV tree- totally bored to tears waiting for something more to happen.

My midwife came in and said at that rate I'd be having the baby on Sat, 9/18 b/c I wasn't even in labor yet. They were doing things very slowly and not wanting to be aggressive b/c of how I wanted it to be as natural as possible. Then she said they could up the pitocin every 15 min (which is normal) and get things really going but I could expect to dialate one centimeter an hour until delivery- 7 hours at least!! Or they could break my water and see if that would kick start things. I decided to go ahead with that. I was there. I was hooked up to the IV and I already felt defeated about having the kind of birth that I wanted.

At 10:50 am they broke my water. At 11:10 I had my first STRONG contraction. And that did it. I was in labor. I'd planned to walk around, do hydrotherapy, sit on the ball, etc. But I was thrown into it so hard and fast - (I was still hooked up to the pitocin) that all of those plans went out the window. I just wanted to relax as much as possible! At 11:45 am they checked me and I was dialated to a 6! I was progressing so they turned off the pitocin and unhooked all of the IV's from me- yay! At this point I began saying I wanted an epidural. I was still thinking I could be having these intense contractions for the next few hours. I had nothing to prove- and I didn't care! I wanted pain relief! But Ryan kept saying "I don't think that's what you really want." Then my mom asked if I could do another contraction, which I did- and this went on for a bit. The nurse checked me at 12:15 pm and said I was at an 8! I knew that it was too late for an epidural now but it didn't really matter b/c I also FINALLY realized that I was in the home stretch! The whole time I was wanting the epidural I was still thinking "one centimeter an hour until delivery" which of course had me totally freaked out b/c I could NOT do that! Anyhow, I set a goal to have this baby out before 1 pm. :) I focused on totally relaxing and allowing my body to do its thing! Pushing was a bit of a challenge b/c he was so big! But obviously everything was fine and he was born at 12:41 pm. So I was in labor- total- for just under two hours since they'd broken my water! I swear that has to be a new record. All the nurses and my midwife were in shock! It was kind of funny! They kept saying- "if we'd known that's all you needed, we would've done it in the beginning!" But of course, who can predict or even pretend to know the path childbirth will take? All I know is that I'm grateful that it happened so quickly and that I didn't end up getting the epidural- thanks to Ryan :) And for ME it's a big deal b/c it cuts my recovery time to a fraction of what it would be otherwise.

And here is the big boy in all his glory. If I hadn't seen the scale my self I wouldn't have believe I'd just pushed out a 9 lb baby!

My awesome nurse and midwife

Proud Grandma- a 10th time over!

Sweet baby, River! He still sleeps like that with his chin propped on his hands.

Brand, spankin newborns are probably my most favorite thing in the whole world.

Getting some daddy love.

When I originally began this post I'd planned for it to be more in depth. But in two days, it will have been 6 weeks since River's birth and that is pretty ridiculous that I haven't been able to post before now. However, I do have four children now. It is CRAZY HECTIC! There. I said it.

Now that you have the birth pics and story I can start doing updates! Yay!