the longest 2 days of my life were worth every second

Tuesday I had a doctor's appointment at 11am and as I sat in the waiting room, I felt my very first painful contraction. I told the doctor how I'd felt the baby moving around less and of course that bought me a one way ticket to a room where a machine was hooked up to my belly to monitor things. The contractions were causing the baby's heart rate to drop so I was told it was time to get the baby out.

I was given a drug at 3pm that would start moving things along and boy did it! I was walking around with tolerable contractions by midnight. At 3am, they stopped those drugs and started me on pitocin, the famous wonder drug that supposedly throws you into full blown labor. Well - it does.

From 3am-7:30am I endured the worst pain of my life in 30 second increments. I broke down at 7am and asked for an epidural. From 7:30am until 9pm, I made some progress in labor but I stalled out at 7cm. I also developed a fever of 102. At 9pm the doctor said if I developed another fever, they couldn't risk my health and I'd have to get a C section right away. As luck would have it, I got another fever at about 10pm and I knew what was coming next.

At 10:30, I was wheeled into a bright room with lots of masked people racing around and by 11:07 pm, with Dave by my side in a sterile outfit, I heard two things:

1. baby cries
2. Dave saying "It's a boy"

I may look calm in this photo that Dave took of me as we both sat waiting for me to be cut open, but I think this might be the most terrified I've ever been in my life. I'm a good actor I guess.



Right after I was sewn up and little Clark was handed to us, the doctor took our camera and shot our first family photo.



Our little man earns the last photo on the blog today, simply by being so darn cute.