Levi Owen

Our little boy, Levi, made his debut in the world August 12th at 8:59 p.m. He weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz and 18 inches long. He's already the spitting image of his daddy and the apple of mom's eye. I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on him and Jason saying "It's a boy!" God is good!

If you've been following our blog I'm sure you're dying to know the sequence of events for that day. The short story is we made it to the hospital and had a baby! I couldn't have been more relieved.

Here's the long story:

I woke up Wednesday morning like any other Wednesday morning and started to get ready for another 12 hour shift at the pharmacy. Good times. Well, when I got out of bed I felt immense pressure just under my sternum and really thought I was going to be sick. I've been pretty fortunate to not have any morning sickness so this was a little odd, but I just thought I was nauseated and continued to get ready for work. About a half hour later my right arm started going numb and my chest was really tight. I believe I told Jason "It feels like there's an elephant sitting on my chest". When I heard myself say that and thought about my tingling arm I started to think I was having a heart attack!! All of the 'I'm too young for this' thoughts ran through my head so I opted to call the doctor. We went into the office to get things checked out. Now being completely naive I insisted on driving separate from Jason becasue I still intended to go to work that day!! At the office they hooked me up to the fetal monitor and checked for contractions. Lo and behold they were coming every 3-5 minutes and I was 5 cm dilated. The best part was I didn't feel a thing! They sent us to the hospital. Good thing we already had our bags packed and in the car!

When we got to the hospital I got checked again. I hadn't made anymore progress. The nurse gave me the option of getting admitted or going home. I told Jason I wanted to go home. :) He politely told me that I could go home, however, I would need to find my own ride home. (We dropped off our extra car at a friends house and our house is 90 minutes away from the hospital). After much deliberation, and I do mean much, I took the "free ticket to have a baby tonight" card and moved in to the labor and delivery suite. We had a nice afternoon of watching TV and pleasant conversation with the hospital staff. I still wasn't feeling my contractions, but I had progressed to 6 cm. I was starting to think this labor stuff was easy! The doctor came in later and wanted to break my water to speed things along. I was quite comfortable at the time and not too keen on "speeding things along". Again we deliberated. I said no, Jason said yes...he was NOT going home. Ultimately they broke my water and nothing happened...for an hour. I was planning an unmedicated birth, but things started to go down hill fast! I was at 7 cm and screaming (yes, literally screaming) for an epidural. So 20 minutes later my epidural was in place and I couldn't feel my contractions, but oh my goodness I sure was ready to push. In those 20 minutes I managed to progress from 7 cm to 9.5 cm. My nurse said she's never seen anyone progress so fast, no wonder I so desperately wanted that epidural!! About a half an hour later Levi was here! His birth was one of the best moments of our lives.