Faster than you can say "Labor and Delivery"

Friday, March 14, the day before Noah was due, I was up all night with some pretty painful contractions that were about 10-15 minutes apart. However, when I got up Saturday, my contractions all stopped! I was exhausted that day, so I did a lot of relaxing and then we went to my parents for dinner. I started having contractions again about 10 minutes apart, but they were very mild. Dan and I came home and I went to bed around 8:30 because I was so exhausted.

About 10:30 I woke up with a very intense contraction. After it was over, I went to the bathroom to realize that I was leaking some fluid. I called Dan and we decided we better head to the hospital. We called our parents and headed for the hospital around 10:45 p.m. We went to triage and after lots of questions, they hooked me up to monitor my contractions for the next 30 minutes. I was a little nervous, because I wasn't really having any contractions, and the ones I was having were very mild. Finally, the doctor came in to check me. I was 4 cm dilated and the fluid I was leaking was amniotic fluid, so they admitted me. As the nurses asked questions, prepared my IV, etc my contractions started picking up. Around midnight, we made it back to our room. I tried to lay down and get some rest in between contractions while Dan was busy writing some emails to people at work informing them that he wouldn't be making it in on Monday! I talked to the nurse about an epidural, but was really nervous about it dragging out the process. Finally, we decided I should go ahead and have the epidural so that I could get some rest so I would have energy to push when the time came. As the nurse prepared the IV I had to have before getting the epidural I got a strong urge to push (but I'm a first time mom, so if I said that all the nurses would think I was crazy right?!?) The nurse hooked the IV up and then another strong contraction with the strong urge to push, so I just let it out - "I feel like I need to push!!" The room seemed to kind of stop as all of the nurses looked at me. They called the doctor in, and sure enough I was fully dilated and ready to push! It all happened so fast (sorry to those of you with long, horror stories!) I pushed for about 30 minutes as I was encouraged by my amazing husband and told over and over again by the doctors and nurses how much hair this boy had!!

At 2:46 a.m. Noah Daniel Swartz made his grand entrance into this world! He was 7 pounds 15 ounces and 21.5 inches long. It was the most amazing feeling in the world when they placed my son on my chest - love at first sight for sure! I didn't want to ever let them take him!

 I did, however, finally let them take him. Here is Noah after his first bath.

 And the first picture of our new little family! So thankful for the wonderful nurses at the Birthplace and for my amazing husband who was a terrific daddy right from the start!