Andrew Bryan Thomas

Well, he's here!! The little man has made his debut into our family. Early Friday morning around 3:30, I woke up to go to the bathroom and thought my water had broke. During the day on Thursday I had felt a little different and was feeling some weird contractions, but nothing too consistent or close together. Well my doctor said to come on in to the hospital and we would check things out. By the time Mike and I got things together and the dogs taken care of, I could feel the contractions again, and they were about 5 minutes apart. Not terribly painful, but not pleasant either. We got to the hospital, were admitted by the nurses, all the while the contractions are getting more painful. It's about 4:30am at this point. Nurse checks me and says I'm about 3cm dialated. And the contractions just keep getting stronger. I'm moved into another room and my doctor comes at about 6:00 and says I'm 5cm. Drew's heart looks good, says she'll be back around 8. She comes back around 8 and by then I'm 7cm. Moving right along and by this point I've had unbearable minute apart contractions, so they give me an epidural. Which wasn't that bad and felt wonderful afterwards. The doc comes back around 10 and tells me I'm already 9cm. She notices Drew's heart rate slowing down each time a contraction comes. They move me in different positions for about 15 minutes and nothing changes. Doc says sometimes this happens because the baby is caught by their embellical cord. Could have been wrapped around anything. She suggests we do a c-section because she's not sure anything would change in the next hour and having Andrew's heart rate slow down is not good. I almost started crying, but knew we had to do what was best. The scariest part was when all of a sudden it felt like 15 different people came in all at once to prepare me. I was given more medicines, had an air mask on, cap on my head, had to get my jewelry off very quick, etc. They wheeled me out of the room, strapped me down and then let Mike in. I couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything, oh but I could hear what was going on. As soon as I heard that sweet cry, I was overcome with feelings. I know that Mike went and cut the cord and watched them pull Drew out of me. And then got to spend the first couple hours with him because I was in recovery for the first hour and then pretty out of it till about dinner time.

The c-sections was not planned for at all, but Drew is now safe in our arms. I wasn't able to do much of anything in the hospital because of the recovery process of a c-section. I can't pull myself out of bed, can't really bend over, can't carry or hold anything more than 10 pounds, and lots of other things. My husband has done an absolute wonderful job through all of this. He worked his butt off at the hospital. Changed every diaper, brought him to me or to anyone else that wanted to hold him, and helped me in the bathroom and taking my showers. Words can't explain how amazing he is.

We're now home and adjusting to life as a family of three (five if you count the dogs.) He's still doing a lot of the work and helping me around the house. Many, many pictures of our new adventure together will be posted in the future!