Welcoming Hudson

 It's hard to believe our sweet boy is over a week old now!

I'm just now getting around to getting pictures off my camera & phone and thinking about blogging. Which is a lot sooner than I did with Emma, so I guess that's a good sign.

Here's the story of how our sweet boy made is way into this world...

 I had started having pretty consistent contractions over Easter weekend back in March, and that had continued off & on for the whole month. I was exhausted, more so emotionally than anything else from the constant wondering if true labor was near.

I had gone to the doctor on Monday, April 22nd & was told that I was CLOSE & probably if I was really active & walked a lot I would be back by the end of the day to have him. Well, I did just that & no change. Still having consistent contractions, but they were not going anywhere. 

After I dropped Emma off at school on Tuesday, I headed straight to the park to walk again, but it pretty quickly started raining & put an end to my walk, but we went for another FAST walk that night. During the night my contractions started getting stronger & I just had that feeling that maybe this was finally "it." I went in to the doctors office that morning for them to check me again, and she said we were going to have a baby that day. All I needed was for my water to be broken & we would probably have a baby pretty quickly. She wanted me to head straight to the hospital so we could get the party started. I was by myself with Emma, so I called David to leave work asap & then dropped Emma off at a friends house to play. Then drove myself to the hospital & got to my room & started on paperwork, etc.  

David quickly left work & ran by the house to get our bags, then was there to join me in no time. I was so thankful he was able to get there so quickly! Both of our parents were able to leave really quickly after getting the call from us & were there safe & sound in time.What a blessing!

 My doctor came in about 1:00 & broke my water. My contractions were coming fairly consistently every 3-6 minutes but intensity was somewhat up & down. So they started me on a low dose of pitocin to get things a little more regular.

That did seem to be helping & I wasn't in pain, but was feeling like they were picking up pretty quickly, so I decided to go ahead & get my epidural before I was feeling it any more. :) 

They had to try it three times before they got it right. Not too bad, but I was starting to get a little worried that it wasn't going to work! Thankfully, third time was the charm! That was at about 2:45.

With Emma, my epidural was SO strong that I couldn't feel a single thing! Which was awesome & awful all at the same time. I had to push with her for 2 hours & was completely exhausted. I had asked if maybe it could be not quite a strong. That ended up being a good & bad thing. ha!

 Around 3:15 they checked me & I was at a 5. 

At 4:50 or so, I was at a 6. This whole time they were predicting that he would be there by dinnertime. After so little progress in an hour, I was beginning to think it would be later than that, but they assured me things would start moving a lot faster. They were not lying! On my phone I have a text I sent to my mom in the waiting room at 5:24 saying I was starting to feel A LOT of pressure. Within the matter of two or three contractions I was feeling like I was really close to needing to push. They came back in to check me & quickly called my doctor to tell her to come right away. Thanks to my epidural, I wasn't feeling any pain from the contractions, but the pressure & pain "down there" did not seem to be phased one bit from the epidural. The bad side of that was the pain, but the good part was I was able to push & get him out FAST! Really quickly I was really needing to push, as they were telling me to try to "breath through it," they called my doctor again to see where she was, thankfully she was walking in the door right after that. That was awful-trying NOT to push, and I wasn't doing a really good job of stopping it! Dr. Westerholm quickly started getting suited up, telling me to "hold on! I have to get my gloves on!"

I pushed through maybe 3 or 4 contractions & he was here!

Sweet Hudson Whitfield was born at 5:39!

So really within 15 minutes I went from starting to feel the intense pressure, to having him in my arms!

It was so wonderful & a completely different birth experience than with Emma. 

A lot faster. A lot more painful. But just as sweet. 

One really funny story from the delivery...

David does NOT deal with human blood or pain too well, so with Emma I cut the cord & did the same with Hudson. He was standing up by my head taking pictures, and as soon as I cut the cord, a huge squirt of blood made a b-line for David's face. It covered his face & the camera with blood & was dripping down on his shirt, pants, boots, etc. Ha! It was really funny, but really yucky for him. I was proud of him for not passing out, although I know he wanted to! 

He was the best support to me through the whole day, and especially during delivery. I am so incredibly thankful for such a great husband. Could not have done it without him!

Ok, on to what you really want to see...pictures!

Our sweet doctor with Hudson.

She is an Aggie, and always gets to excited to "add another one to the club."

Our sweet nurse from the day. 

The one of the left was wonderful & precious & the one on the right was training. 

She was very sweet as well, but meant everything had to be done or checked twice. 

That part was not so sweet. ;)

I think the pictures of David holding Hudson for the first time are on his phone. 

I need to get all of those from him.

Once the great cord blood squirt happened, the pictures taking kinda got a little crazy. ;)

 Meeting grandparents. 

Once again, crazy picture taking & I don't have one of Happy holding her first grandson.

Emma enjoyed my hospital dinner. I enjoyed Chick-fil-A later that night. 

Not having eaten all day, I wanted something a little more appealing. :)

 He loved his bath & getting cleaning up & I loved that that did all of this in the room. 

With Emma, they took her to the nursery for all of that, so I was glad to be able to have him right there.

 Emma is such a proud & excited about being a big sister. 

That is going to deserve it's own post,

 because there are just too many sweet things I want to share & remember.

Hudson Whitfield Snow

7 lbs 5 oz

20 inches

5:39 PM