Birth Story Part 2: New Baby Boy

For the first part of my son's story, see Birth Story Part 1: Unexpected Challenges.

Thursday, July 16th

We were scheduled for induction at noon, but as is typical the hospital was busy and we weren't able to get in until 3:30. We dropped our sweet daughter off at Nana's house and headed to the hospital. The most stressful part of the whole experience for me was being away from her for so long. We had never both left her overnight before and we haven't done it since. Doing so is a big deal for us - we don't have our kids babysat very often at all! So needless to say, I really was hoping this whole process would go quickly to minimize time away from her.

We didn't get things started until about 5:30 or 6, because the intake process just takes a while and then they had to do a non-stress test and quick ultrasound to make sure everything was still looking good and Baby was still head-down.

Birth Story Part 1: Unexpected Challenges

My son was born in July, and I am just now getting around to sharing his birth story. It wasn't what I had planned or what I wanted. His birth went well, he was healthy and I was healthy, but it still took me a while to come to terms with what happened in those crazy few weeks surrounding his birth.

I know I love a good birth story. There's nothing more magical than the moment a new little person enters the world and you get to meet him or her for the first time. But this little man's birth story starts a few weeks before the actual birth.

The pregnancy had been textbook, smooth, and even easier than my first pregnancy (except of course for the toddler I was wrangling and carrying everywhere). Our little man was due mid August, right after we were set to move out of our vicarage house. We had a great plan in place to have the baby while staying with my parents and then move back to St. Louis Labor Day weekend for our last year of seminary.

Things didn't go as planned...