Jake's grand entrance into the world :)

39 weeks and 5 days!

This is me *slowly* getting back into the blogging world. I feel like we are finally getting into somewhat of a routine (as much as a routine that an 11 day old will get in :) so hopefully I can start to give a couple updates here and there. Where before I was a full time Event Coordinator at Trinity and a part time student, now I am a part time Event Coordinator at Trinity and a full time mom. So, as you can tell there are some adjustments that we are making :)

Jake decided to make his arrival early- he definitely surprised us! Dan had the Friday off before Memorial Day and it was really fun because we spent the day hanging out together at the pool and then had what we thought (and was) would be our last date night to Outback before little Jake arrived! Toward the end of dinner I told Dan I was feeling a lot more contractions but they didn't hurt. When I got home we started to time them and they were about 4 minutes apart. I was supposed to go to a friend's bridal shower, and was so torn because again, the contractions weren't painful, but they were very consistent and we were told when they were between 5 to 7 minutes apart you should go to the hospital!

I decided to stay home and keep timing them and when they didn't die down I called the doctor. Although I was almost 3 centimeters dilated, the doctor said I should wait it out a little longer so Dan and I started walking. The contractions got stronger as we were walking, but again, not really painful. When I think of contractions I think of keeling over, can't breath kind of pain and that is not what I was feeling at all. We went home and went to bed, and when I got up in the morning they were still coming very consistently, and so we continued to walk. Around 11am I decided to call again. I was definitely that mom who kept calling the doctor :) I figured I'd rather call than drive to the hospital and get sent home! However, that is exactly what the doctor told me to do! She said worst case I would be sent home if I wasn't in labor. So, we packed up and reluctantly headed to the hospital. It's funny because I always pictured us going to the hospital really quickly - with me in the back seat breathing heavily and yelling at Dan to drive faster (or at least that's what happens in a Baby Story on TLC :). We actually talked about how we didn't think this was it on the drive over and didn't even bring in all our bags because we thought we would be going home.

Well, I got in there and they checked me out, and since I was almost 4 centimeters and I was having consistent contractions they admitted me! That's when Dan and I got really excited! We started texting/ calling our friends and family and gearing up for a long day- the nurse said to expect to be in labor for about 10 to 12 hours. We were expecting our baby to be born early in the morning on May 27th.

Skip forward to 7:00 at night. Dan and I had been watching Forest Gump in the hospital when they came and checked me and I was 7 centimeters. I was actually pretty surprised- and even more surprised when at 9:00 they said I was fully dilated. The stirrups came up and the brightest lights in the world came on and they said to get ready to start pushing. I looked at Dan, grabbed his hand, and we started! I was expecting to push for at least 1 to 2 hours (they say with an epidural it can take even up to 3 hours!), so I was shocked when after 6 pushes, 15 minutes later, the nurse told me to stop pushing because the baby would come out and the doctor wasn't in the room. I couldn't believe we were going to meet our baby within 20 minutes of pushing! The doctor came in and on the next push Jake made his appearance, and it was quite an appearance because the doctor literally had to catch him because he came out so fast! He was just so excited to meet us :) He was born on May 26th at 9:20pm weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces and was 20 inches long.

It was so surreal. Dan and I keep talking about how crazy it is to love someone so much and you literally just met them for a couple hours. We keep talking about how we cannot believe we are a family of 3 and not a family of 2 anymore! It's an adjustment, but we're enjoying every minute with him :) He is such an incredible blessing and we already can't get over his hilarious facial expressions he makes at us!

I'll write more about our first week home with our little guy, but for now I've gotta head out because he's going to wake up from his nap any second :)