A new member of the family

Cooper Lund Church

Born: June 19, 2009
9:25 PM
7 lbs 4 oz
20 1/2 inches

(41 wks and 1 day.)

After a disappointing appointment on the day before, which happened to be my due date, where I was told that I was not making any progress and that I was probably going to have to wait a week to be induced, I awoke at 4:30 am feeling what I thought to be contractions. I could not go to sleep and eventually started timing them at 7:00 only to find they were consistently 5 minutes apart.

(Final picture before it was time to start pushing.)

We had an ultrasound appointment scheduled for 11:00 so I thought I would mention my "what I thought were contractions" to the doctor. When I told her I had been having these for about 7-8 hours she sent me over to the hospital where it turns out I had finally progressed to 3 centimeters. This was about 1:00 PM. I was so excited that I did not have to be induced and that it was finally time to have our baby!

(Welcome to the world!)

I was put on some pitocin to speed up the process and continued to steadily progress. At five centimeters I decided to have the epidural because why the heck not? My doctor broke my water only to discover that Cooper had had a bowel movement so we were going to have to have a NICU nurse and a few other attendants at the birth to suction him out and make sure there were no respiratory problems.

(Skin to skin time. My first time holding the baby living inside me the past ten months.)

After the epidural and my water being broken things continued to progress smoothly. Next time they checked me I was at a seven and then at a nine. At about nine o'clock I reached a ten. We had to wait on a couple people to arrive so it was not until about 9:20 that everyone was ready to start pushing...only then I was not having a contraction so we had to wait a couple minutes more.

(Cooper's toes.)
While we were waiting on being able to start pushing, Cooper started to crown all on his own. When it came time to start I pushed once, his head came out, they suctioned him and then they pulled the rest of him out. I asked the doctor "Don't I need to push out the shoulders or anything?" but he was already out. On one push. It was crazy fast. They have the official time of birth as 9:25 but Todd and I agree it was about 9:23.

(Clean after a bath.)
This experience was so amazing. It was so much less scary than when I had Fisher and I hope the rest of my deliveries (when the time comes) will be as enjoyable and non stressed as this one. All of my nurses were amazing. My doctor actually stayed late to deliver me even though she was not on call that night. I appreciated this so much considering it was a Friday night and she has a couple of kids of her own she could have gone home to.

Todd's family came down from Cincinnati and arrived at the hospital when I was at seven. They kept us company while my mom stayed at home with Fisher. Thank you to Todd's family for making the drive to be with us and thank you to my mom for staying at home with Fisher. Although I would have loved for her to be at the hospital as well, it was so nice to know that I did not have to worry about Fisher and what havoc he was causing at whomever's house. We are so lucky for the families we have and the support we receive.

We are so happy to have this special new addition to our family. Although it took almost 24 hours to decide on a name we finally agreed on Cooper. Why it took us so long to figure out is beyond me considering we have been saying we would name our next boy Cooper since not too long after Fisher was born :)

I have so many pictures that I like that I decided just to put them all on here.

The next few are pictures with Dad.

First time Daddy held him less than an hour after he was born.

I like this shot of Cooper's hair. Fisher's hair was a silvery blonde color. We were very excited to see what color this baby would be.

Crazy eye.

Mom with her boys.

My boys.

So far so good.

We'll see how Fisher fares once the baby comes home tomorrow. So far Fisher has liked "his baby."

Our first family photo.

Fisher had a lot of fun playing in my bed. He all but kicked me out while he took over.