Welcome Cole Thomas!

Last Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at 8:27 pm, we welcomed our son, Cole Thomas, into the world! He was 8 pounds and 4.6 ounces and 19 inches long. Here's the story of Cole's grand arrival:

On Tuesday morning, I noticed a series of consistent contractions and back pain. I figured I'd ride it out a while in case it was a false alarm. Grandma Bergeman was scheduled to come over to play with Sydney so I could go shopping and pick up some last-minute items. But, when Grandma arrived, I decided it might be a better idea to stick close to home. When the contractions were about 8 minutes apart, I called the doctor (around 9:30 am). I thought for sure they'd just tell me to come to the office for a check-up, but they sent me directly to the hospital! When I got to the hospital, the nurse determined that I was about 3.5 centimeters dialated. That wasn't necessarily great news because I'd been 3 centimeters dialated the week before. Anyway, instead of sending me home, the nurse suggested that I walk the hospital for an hour. After an hour, Doctor Park checked me, and I was 4.5 centimeters! She admitted me to labor and delivery (around 11:30 am), and we knew we'd be meeting Cole in no time.

Tom joined me at the hospital right around noon as I was getting comfortable in the delivery room. Everything was moving right along - I got my epidural around 1:30 pm. The epidural wasn't seamless. Soon after I got it, it was clear that it was only working on my right side. I couldn't feel my right leg, but I could wiggle the toes on my left foot! Anyway, the anesthesiologist had to come back and turn up the epidural, and eventually, I was blissfully numb!

It took several hours for the contractions to get strong enough to initiate active labor. Around 7:00 pm, the nurses were having a hard time monitoring my contractions. They came in and adjusted the monitors several times to no avail. Around 8:10 pm, they decided to check me and determined that baby Cole was on his way! In fact, things were moving along so quickly, the nurse had me start pushing without putting my feet in the stirrups! After 15 minutes of pushing, Cole Thomas was born!