Introducing JEREMIAH!

*WARNING- DANGEROUSLY LONG POST AHEAD. DETAILED PREGGO/DELIVERY STORY, BUT NO (TOO) GORY DETAILS. PROMISE!!!*

Well, he's here. And if you've seen the post below, you know his due date wasn't until DECEMBER, so yeah, there's that. And "that" comes with a story. So here goes!

My doctor had been telling me for the last two visits that I likely wouldn't make it until my due date. In fact, the conversation went a bit like this:

Dr- Kim, do you have a plan? For your classes? Work?
Kim- Yeah, my plan is to have a baby in December.
Dr- I think you may need a new plan. (insert snicker here.)

I alerted the important people at work that I could essentially have a baby at any time. But let's be clear, I didn't really believe that was going to happen. And you can tell that by the absolute chaotic way that I had to leave work and class the day I went into labor. I talked to Landon about it and he was all enthusiastic. All "yay! Let's have a baby now!" while I made the hate face at him. I did however pack my hospital bag last Monday night. THANK GOODNESS. More just to feel prepared or something, but boy was I grateful the next day.

So Tuesday I went to work as normal. It was the first day that I just REALLY felt pregnant. And miserable. I looked pregnant, I felt pregnant, I was uncomfortable, my feet hurt, I had some just overall yucky feelings, and seriously thought to myself "There's no WAY I can keep being pregnant much longer." I taught my classes, no problem. I mean I had some contractions, but though no big deal. You can have those for weeks. I jokingly said to a colleague that I might just have the baby that night after class. NEVER SAY THAT OUTLOUD, ok?! After teaching I ran to Freebirds because I was starving. While paying for my burrito bowl the guy joked "maybe this will be the last thing you eat before the baby!" Me- haha, yeah that would be funny. (Seriously, how many hints were there?!)

So I took my happy lunch and went to the (new) office. Everyone was hanging out in the lobby decorating for Christmas which was AWESOME. (I haven't had a chance to blog about my freaking amazing new job, so you'll just have to take my word for it for now.) My new (2-ish weeks) colleagues were literally filling out a "When Will Kim Have the Baby?" calendar when I thought to myself 'oh crap, I gotta get out of here. Something bad is about to happen.' So I literally RAN out of the office, across the hall to the bathroom. And on the way, my water broke. YUP. That really happened. New office, new coworkers, very, VERY public water breaking. If you know me, you'll know that this is about the absolute worst thing that could have ever happened for me. I'm a super private person, and here I am, literally going into labor in front of EVERYONE. But, because my new coworkers are so freaking awesome, they weren't fazed at all. Some of the girls came in to check on me and I was having some kind of melt down. I asked someone to get Landon, and someone to run upstairs to the bookstore to get me some sweatpants because HELLO, my water broke. (Yuck). All of these things happened very quickly. (And later I found out that they were actually closing but my awesome colleagues made it happen anyway. Love those guys.) They also brought me another shirt to wear because I was basically dying of total embarrassment. Landon came to get me (right into the girls bathroom. More awkwardness). I muttered something incoherent and panicked about how I couldn't leave the bathroom because my water broke, and kept right on coming. He said something to the effect of, yeah you don't really have a choice. There was a lot of other comforting stuff in there, like 'it's ok,' 'no one cares,' and 'my car will be fine,' but at that point I couldn't hear anything rational. So he finally coaxed me out of there and into the car, on the way to the hospital.

Yup, this is what I'm wearing. You know what I'm not wearing? Shoes. I wore mary janes that day and didn't want to get my pretty shoes dirty. That's pretty classy, right? At this point I'm just grateful I was wearing SOMETHING since this is definitely NOT what I went to work in. 

Getting admitted was a nightmare. We got there at 5:30 and I was waiting in triage until 7:30. Landon had to leave me for a few minutes to run home and feed the boys, change and get our stuff. While he was gone I was in a room with no TV, music, distractions, etc except for being able to hear another woman in triage screaming her head off. Like she was actually dying. And she kept talking (loudly) about super cheerful things, like "did you hear about that kid they were looking for? Yeah, they found him dead." And I'm practically yelling at her to SHUT UP ABOUT DEAD KIDS in a freaking LABOR & DELIVERY triage! But her husband really had everyone's back by saying something along the lines of "um, ok. I'm gonna go outside and smoke a cigarette." When the doctor examined her, they told her she wasn't dilated AT ALL and sent her home with no restrictions. If she thought she was in pain then, personally I'm glad I won't be there when the real thing happens. About 7:30 I finally get checked out and the doctor says "ok, your water broke." NO FREAKING KIDDING. I know nothing about childbirth but even I knew that. Anyway, at that point they put us in a room.

Landon tried to get the room set up how we planned, and we realized about 2 minutes in that nothing was going to go according to our birth plan. And it didn't for sure. I wasn't allowed to walk around (because of the broken water), I had to be on constant monitoring because I had to get pitocin- which definitely wasn't in the plan. Landon and our doula tried to talk me through breathing and my contractions. Landon did a great job and it was really working at first. I had really wanted to do a natural labor, but the pitocin made the pain really REALLY bad. And all of the perks/reasons I wanted to go natural (like not being bed confined) were off the table anyway. So about 9pm I told them I wanted the drugs. They both were encouraging me "you can do it, just breathe, you don't need them." They stalled it for like an hour, all the while I'm saying "no really, give me the drugs." Finally I turn to Landon and give him the face and say something like "I'm not playing anymore. Give me the drugs NOW." He says something like "I'll get right on it." That's one of the good things about him. He KNOWS the face. They told me it would be an HOUR before I could get the epidural and because of my heart, it would take about another hour after that for them to essentially titrate it to an effective dose. I think at this point I said for maybe the 10th time that I wanted to die. And I was intermittently screaming like a banshee (which when I made this observation, Landon found this hysterical). And I think even a little bit of swearing. It kicked in finally and we decided to try and relax for a few minutes while the pitocin did it's job. Landon fell asleep, and the doula and I tried to do the same. Until I realized the epidural wasn't working. The brought the lovely pain man back in (who was super awkward, but really nice) and he messed with the dose until I felt better and went to sleep. Got to rest from about 1 until 4. I had no idea that would be the "best" and most continuous sleep I'd be getting for the foreseeable future (and still counting).

The doctor woke me up at 4 and told me I was a "10" and it was time to push. I'll spare you the details, but this part wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The epidural was working, and I was ready to meet the little guy. The pushing took forever and the doctor was concerned that he was "sunny side up" so she brought in our high risk doctor to try and rotate the baby. He was able to do it in about 45 seconds, and it didn't even hurt. At that point the doctor recommended that we allow him to use the forceps and go ahead and deliver the baby. He thought it might come to that anyway, and they were only willing to let me push another 45 minutes anyway, so I turned to Landon and asked what he thought we should do. He said "let's have a baby." And I agreed. And promptly started BAWLING. I was so overwhelmed at the prospect of meeting our son in a few minutes. I really have no concept of what the doctor did because at that point there was no sense of logic and reason. I do think within 3 minutes or so I was holding our baby. And he was INCREDIBLE. I held him right away, we delayed cord clamping, Landon eventually cut the cord, and they let me just snuggle him for what felt like both hours and just seconds all at once.

So the details everyone wants to know- we welcomed Thomas Jeremiah (who we'll call Jeremiah, or "J." No TJ or Jerry. Seriously) at 7:23 am. He was a perfect 7 pounds, 5 ounces, 20.5 inches long. Tons of dark black hair like daddy. The very first thing he did was sneeze. It was adorable.

brand new baby!

skin to skin with mommy- the greatest invention EVER. 

first snuggle friend. 

nap time with mommy 

first Guns Up. my baby is officially a Red Raider...

our travel set up

helping mommy do school work

what he, and daddy, do when he blows out a diaper

VERY proud daddy

cuteness

checking out his brother

contemplating world affairs

basically being the most awesome baby ever

kicking back

practicing daddy's "what?!" face

I had some pretty significant tearing which was unpleasant, but we had absolutely no problems related to my heart, health, or Jeremiah's health. We couldn't be more grateful for that. Both of us got the medical all clear pretty early, and were able to go home the very next afternoon. On Thanksgiving! What a blessing. And even better- our good friends Anna & Will (who also just had a little guy 3 weeks before us) brought over a full Thanksgiving dinner so we didn't have to miss it.

We are absolutely overwhelmed with love for our little man. And completely scared out of our minds. But he's more amazing than we ever could have imagined and we are so, SO grateful to be his parents. I imagine I'll be blogging significantly more these days so that I can share all of the joys that we encounter these next few days, weeks, and months. I'm so blessed to have a perfect little son, to be a MOMMY!!!!, and to have the most amazing husband and partner any girl could ever ask for. I had no idea life could be so good, or that I could love any two people this much.

And because I know many of my friends will want to know this information- Jeremiah's puppy siblings couldn't love him any more. They are so protective of him and just adore him. He thinks they're pretty great too. He lets them lick all over him (and smiles), and doesn't even wake up when they bark! We have a very happy family of 5 these days!