Mason's Birthday

The last appt. I had with the Dr. we decided to go ahead and induce at 39 weeks.  This meant that on Thursday we would call the hospital at 6am to see if they had room for us.  Obviously, the women who were in actual labor would take precedence over me.

Thursday, June 16th:

We got up at 5:45 to start getting ready to go, and then Nick called the hospital to see if we were good to go.  Unfortunately, they said there was no room and they would call us later when/if they could fit us in.  We both got really disappointed and didn't know if we would get to meet our boy or not.  I wasn't able to eat or drink since midnight the night before so I was also not happy about sitting around hungry and thirsty for no reason.  I decided to take a nap because there was no way of knowing how our day would go.

Nick woke me up from my nap at about 8:40 with the best news ever...it was time to go to the hospital and have this baby!  As soon as we got there they assigned us a room and a nurse.  They immediately had me change, hooked me up monitors, started an IV, and had me sign all my release forms.  Once we were all situated the nurse asked me if I knew I was having a contraction.  I told her no, I thought that Mason was just pushing up on my stomach.  She laughed and said it was definitely a contraction!  My Dr. came to check on me and let the nurse know what the plan was.  They started the pitocin in my IV, and my Dr. said she would be back in a couple hours to break my water.

At 10:57 (Nick has his "notes" that tell what was happening and what time it happened, he's awesome!) the Dr. came in and broke my water.  She said I was dilated close to 5cm, upped my pitocin, and said she would be back to check on my throughout the day.  From this point it was just a waiting game.  My parents, Nick's mom, and my best friend all came to check on me and visit.  Once my water broke it didn't take long for the contractions to truly kick in.  I was quickly having them two minutes apart.  They were painful but doable.  It wasn't until the contractions were stacked one on top of the other that I was really uncomfortable.  The contractions weren't necessarily the most excruciating pain, it was the fact that there was no break or a chance to breathe and relax between them.  Therefore, I got an epidural at 12:29 according to Nick's notes.

Let's just say that epidurals are heavenly, and I highly recommend them!  At this point we were just kind of hanging out, I took a short nap, and we just waited.  My Dr. finally came to check on me again around 4:50 and said I was ready to go!  She was going in to do a C-Section at 5, but since she is really good it wasn't going to take long so she wanted me to get set up and start pushing and she would be back soon to deliver our boy.  Apparently, I am an expert pusher according to our nurse.  I started pushing at 5:03 and then the nurse said we were going to have to slow down because I was doing so well that the baby would be here before the Dr. got back if we didn't.

My Dr. came in and was very impressed with my progress and told me to give her one good push and we would have a baby!  Mason Rhys Santowski was born at exactly 5:30!

Side Note:  We had the best labor and delivery nurse on the entire planet.  She was perfect and incredible.  I was her only patient so she took care of anything and everything I needed.  We were lucky enough to have our entire labor and delivery happen during her shift so we never had to change nurses.

That is a quick run down of my delivery.  I will share more info slowly but surely; however, right now I am completely in love with my little man and most of my time is spent staring at his precious face!

Our first family photo!

Right after he was born...about an hour old.
No he is not flipping you off... that's his bracelet!

How cute is he?

Happy Birthday Mason Rhys!