A Christmas to Remember: James's Birth Day

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. with a contraction.  After monitoring the contractions for over an hour, which were coming every five minutes and were intense but manageable, I got up and packed last minute supplies in my hospital bag, ate a bowl of cereal and called the doctor.  Around 5:30, after only three hours of sleeping in bed (he fell asleep in front of the tv), Joshua popped out of bed and packed up his things while I woke my parents to tell them that we were heading off to the hospital.  I may have inundated them with a bunch of information (i.e. which presents Alma could open from Santa) that I had been mulling over.  It was exciting but we were a little unsure if we really were in labor or not.  With Alma, my water broke at 4 a.m. and there was no denying that labor had started.

We got to the hospital at 6am and had to enter through the ER because the main doors were locked.  Not wanting to be separated from Joshua, we parked in the garage and walked around the hospital to the ER, which was refreshing in the cold air.  Joshua thought it was hilarious that I would pause (both walking and talking) for a contraction and then once it was over quickly return to my chatter again.  He teased that they wouldn't need to put a contraction monitor on me, they could simply listen to when I paused my endless banter.

Once we got  to the ER at 6 a.m., we were told that someone from the Labor and Delivery floor would be there shortly to escort us up.   After a half an hour of steadily increasing contractions and a very nervous looking front desk attendant who was constantly calling up to L&D to see when the escort would get there, we walked through the winding hospital up to the L&D floor.  In the triage room, I was found to be between 5-6 cm dilated and was official admitted to the hospital.  

 

One last photo of the baby bump while in the ER watching It's A Wonderful Life

We were moved to a labor room around 8 a.m. were we hung out -- I was mostly on a yoga ball and Joshua was by my side massaging my neck -- for a relatively painless laboring process until 9:30 a.m. when the doctor arrived.  She checked me and found that I was 9cm dilated.  With her guidance, I broke my own water with a push around 9:45 a.m. and began pushing the baby shortly after.  Pushing this baby was a bit more intense than with Alma and lasted a little longer.  He decided to twist on the way out, which ... well, wasn't the most pleasant.


As soon as James came into the world at 10:22 a.m., they handed him to me bum-first so that I could see that he was a boy -- yeah, a little weird, I would have been okay with them just telling me -- before I got to hug him and snuggle with him.  I couldn't stop repeating "Hello, Baby."  I will always remember the excited look on Joshua's face as he kissed me and congratulated me on doing a good job.  It was a very happy moment.

An hour later, my parents brought Alma to meet her little brother.  Joshua went to the lobby to bring her back to the labor room and we had some time together as the new family of four. She was excited not only to meet James but also because she had been given a "Big Sister" sticker by the hospital staff.

Comically, when we asked Alma if Santa came that morning she said, "No."  While we were confused at first, we realized that when we explained that Santa was going to come at night while she was sleeping, we forgot to mention that he would also leave at night before she woke up.  She had been expecting to see him in the morning.  Sure, he ate the cookies, drank the milk and left presents, but he didn't officially visit because she didn't see him herself!

Then my parents joined us and we had a nice visit while Alma snacked on pretzels.  We were so blessed that my parents were visiting and they could watch Alma and celebrate Christmas with her while we were in the hospital.  It was nice to not have to worry about her or juggle her around between friends while my parents drove out to Bethlehem from their house, as they were planning to do if we went into labor before their visit.  Also, my brother's family, who were already planning on joining us at our house on Christmas for a feast, still came so Alma got to enjoy the holiday with her cousins.