Big Surprise

We're now a family of SIX!

Owen decided to make his appearance early Thursday morning. Which was a huge shock to me since I had already accepted that I would probably have to be induced.

I was sleeping and at 2:30 I had a contraction that woke me up. I thought it was just a fluke and planned on going back to sleep. Ten minutes later, another one. Ten minutes later, another one. They weren't very painful, but I definitely wasn't going to be able to sleep through them so I decided to take a bath and see if they would stop.

That didn't work. They still kept coming so I did a load of laundry and watched part of a movie. They weren't getting any more intense, but by 4:00 they were only 5 minutes apart. Since I wasn't really in pain I was not convinced that these contractions were doing anything. I didn't even wake Scott up. He knew when I got out of bed that I was having contractions and thought that they would just go away like they did last time.

And by 5:00 they were only 2-3 minutes apart. And at this point I was still a little on the fence about going to the hospital. I didn't want to have to wake my grandma up to come sit with the kids if they were just going to send me home. The contractions had gotten a little stronger at this point, but still weren't super painful or anything.

Since they were so close together I finally decided to wake everyone up and head to the hospital. We got there and checked in around 5:45. We went up to the room, I got my gown on, got in bed and my water broke at 6:00 on the dot. They hadn't even got to check me yet. The nurse came in to do that just a minute later and I was fully dilated and ready to go!

That was completely unexpected!! So they got everything set up and we started pushing around 6:30. And I pushed and pushed and pushed. This is the fourth kid. You would think he would come right out. Nope. So I pushed and pushed and pushed some more.

There wasn't really time for an epidural and I wasn't in that much pain anyway. So this was my first completely natural birth. No induction, no epidural. And overall, it was the perfect experience.... And then, during those last 5 minutes of pushing, I thought I was going to die. I definitely scared the crap out of Scott! Poor guy. He probably though I was dying too. I have this nearly painless labor all night and then 5 minutes of the worst pain I have felt in my entire life! Completely unbearable! I swear, I am still traumatized. Will there be any more kids in our future? Ha, I don't know! :)

After pushing for over an hour he was born at 7:49am. Just 5 hours after that first contraction. He was exactly the same size as his brother. 8 pounds 13 ounces and 22 inches long.