Baby Lincoln Arrives

Saturday night about 11:00pm we checked in to EIRMC hospital.  Apparently I was 1 of about 6 women that checked in the same night so I took their last available delivery room.  They immediately checked to see if my water had broke which took about 20 minutes and of course it had.   It's extremely uncomfortable laying on the bed letting fluid run right out of you. Makes you feel like you are peeing all over their stuff. 

They also checked for dilation and I was 1-2cm by that point.   I was having some minor contractions but nothing to make me terribly uncomfortable however they were not going to start me on pitosin until morning to allow the doctor to sleep.  I was unable to get any sleep all night.  They gave me a narcotic that made me fully relax in between contractions which were about every 10 minutes and that lasted about an hour.  I hated it and requested not to have it again.  It made my eyes spinny and I felt drugged.

By early morning probably 5am I started to have some really hard contractions until I was dilated to about a 5 which at that point I was begging for an epidural.  The contractions were about every 3-4 minutes and were intense enough to bring me to tears.  Thankfully the epidural came pretty quick and was working within 15 minutes.  They didn't need to give me any pitosin and before long I was ready to push. 

Mom came about 5 minutes before the doctor to take some photos for us.

Dr. Allphin showed up to deliver the baby and I reminded him that we had discussed Dustin helping him "catch" the baby.  He was excited and helped Dustin gown up and get ready.

I'm pretty sure Dustin was feeling a slight bit anxious at this point. :)  Dr. Allphin gave him a quick 1 line instruction and was ready to go.  I could tell by the look on Dustin's face he was quite dissatisfied with the lack of instruction so I told Dr. Allphin, "My husband is an Engineer, he's going to need a LOT more specific instructions than that."  So he started talking degrees and angles and the party started. :)  ha

Then they watched as I pushed...

Ready, set go! 

And here he is!  Hardly making any sounds.

I got to get a quick glimpse of my beautiful purple baby.

Dustin got to cut the cord. 

He didn't know if he should laugh or cry. 

They cleaned him up and weighed him. 

7 lbs. 4 oz and 20 3/4" long!  Not bad for coming 4 weeks early. 

Poor little man was so swollen. 

And off he went with the NICU nurses for his adventure in the place 

he would call home for at least 12 hours. 

I fell asleep in the delivery room and then after a short while they cleaned me up and took me to my room.  I was able to be wheeled into the NICU to see my baby boy.  He is beautiful!  Sadly I was only able to touch him, no stroking, holding or feeding.  They encouraged us to give him as little stimulation as possible that whole day.  

We decided after seeing him he would be named Lincoln David Braithwaite.  Named after Dustin's dad and a relative we have never met from New Family Search. :)

That evening mom and dad brought the girls up to give me hugs and dad and Dustin gave him a blessing using only their fingers through the incubator holes.  It gave me a lot of comfort to watch the Priesthood be administered to our baby boy.  So thankful for the good example his daddy and grandpa will be for him throughout his life.  And so the adventure begins - prayers and more prayers is all we could do.