The Bickston's: Porter David is here!

Well, I definitely ate my words in my last post! Our sweet baby boy was born February 2, 2o12 and 11 days early!!!

The day he was born was the most amazing day of my life and the whole day couldn't have gone any better. Let's start from the beginning!

I woke up at 5:50 that morning to my water breaking. Honestly, I thought I had wet my pants and thought not again! But, when I sat down on the toilet and then got up, it KEPT coming. I immediately said, "Matt, I think my water broke." He was sleeping and sat up and said, "Babe, are you sure?" By this point, I think he thought I WANTED it to happen so bad I was imagining things. But, it still kept coming so I called my nurse. They told me right away I had to go to L&D so I could be checked and that was the only way to know.

I had a good feeling that this was it, so we got everything loaded in the car and started making videos (something we really wanted to do to document everything that happened that day!) Matt kept saying, "We're not ready yet...the nursery isn't all the way done!" Which was sort of true. We were going to hang Porter's letters from an oar above his crib and we hadn't done that yet. But, everything else was ready. What's funny is that we had designated Saturday as the "last" day to do everything around our house to get ready for our little man. Well, he had different plans :)

So, back to leaving for the hospital. I called my mom right away, because she lives in Colorado and would have to get on a flight to get here. I said, "Ok, mom I want you to get up and start looking at flights because I'm not sure, but I think my water broke." She said to keep her updated and we headed to the hospital. On the way, we called my dad and Matt's parents because they wanted to be informed immediately :)

We got to the hospital and got checked in to a room. They have a little piece of tape that they can use to check if it is amniotic fluid or urine. As soon as she put it down there, it turned dark blue and she informed me, I in fact was in labor. From that point on, everything was so exciting. I experienced a mix of emotions, but mostly I was so excited it was finally happening!!! The day went by VERY fast, even though there was a lot of waiting and watching tv.

Matt got me a "push present" which he was so excited to give me. It was an iPad 2!!! What a great hubby. I loved using it!

At 9:00 am they started me on Pitocin, which started my contractions. At first they started out small and then started to REALLY hurt.

At around 1:00, I was dilated to a 4, so it was time to get the epidural!

Side note- the epidural was NOTHING. It took like 2 minutes and didn't even hurt. My suggestion to anyone getting it who is freaked out, just don't look at any of the tools they use. I had no idea what he was doing back there and it made me feel much better :)

After the epidural things were GREAT! My mom got there with Matt's mom around 3:00 pm and it was nice to visit with them and just relax.

By around 5:00 pm, my nurse checked me and I was dilated to a 9!!! I couldn't believe it. How quick! Porter was getting lower and lower and ready to come. I pushed for about 30 minutes, but every time I pushed he would go back up. So, they wanted me to turn on my side and wait for him to make his way down on his own.

At 6:00 pm, it was time to push again. I pushed for 25 more minutes and he was born. That last 25 minutes was the hardest, it was hard work! But, by far the most amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life. I can't put into words how amazing it was. Seeing your baby for the first time, well it was surreal.

As soon as Porter came out, he grabbed onto my doctors shirt and held on. It was the funniest thing!

After that, I got to do skin to skin and hold my sweet little boy. Ahhh, I was in heaven and STILL AM.