Welcome to the world James Robert!

He is here!  Our beautiful baby boy decided to make his entrance into this world on Wednesday, March 6, 2013.

This is one of the first pictures we have of our little guy.  Apparently he wasn't very happy.  I think he just wanted to see his mommy.

This picture is of Zeb and I in our labor and delivery room. On March 5th, we reported to the hospital at 6:00am to be induced.  We assumed this would be the day we would meet our son, but he had a different idea.  At 7:15 the doctor broke my water.  Contractions were pretty slow starting, so eventually they started the Pitocin.  Contractions began and just as Zeb and I decided to start a game of rummy, they really kicked in, and it was time for the epidural (1:30pm).  It took two tries to get it going.  From what Zeb says, its a good thing I couldn't see this process.

As the hours passed by, my contractions increased (according to the monitor), but they simply weren't strong enough.  It took me a very long time to progress.  At 6:00pm I was only at 4cm, and my doctor told me that if I didn't progress more substantially, he was going to do a c-section at 9:00.  This didn't sit well with me.  It simply wasn't what I had in mind, so it was hard for me to wrap my mind around it.  The nurses were very understanding of this, and they tried several things to get me to progress.  And slowly but surely they worked. They even got Zeb's hopes up when they began prepping the room for delivery at 11pm.  My progress stalled out at 9cm, just as my epidural wore off on one side.  Around 2:00am the following morning (Zeb and I had been up for 24 hours at this point), the nurse called the doctor, and it was decided I needed to have a c-section because labor was not going to progress any further.  Although I resisted when this was mentioned the first time, I had come to terms with it at this point, and I knew it was the right thing to do.  Prepping for surgery went very quickly.  I was moved to the operating room, and they determined my epidural port would be sufficient, which meant I didn't have to be put under general anesthesia and Zeb would be able to stay in the room.

At 2:22am our little man entered the world!  Daddy was able to hold him and bring him over for me to see him. It had been an incredibly long day, but all that mattered at that moment was our new son!  I could hardly believe he was finally here.  (Even as I write this, my eyes tear up.  It was an amazing moment.)

It was officially time for our big reveal: his name!  I made Zeb promise not to tell our parents until I could be there with him.  Once they moved me into recovery, they all came down and we told them our son would be named James Robert.  James was my great-grandpa Albert's middle name and Robert is Zeb's middle name.

At this point, Zeb took our parents to the nursery to meet our son. I was disappointed that I didn't get to see this, but they had been waiting in the waiting room since 10am for this moment.  I did, however, get to see the first time they each held him, which is a moment I won't forget.  Although I did forget several other things about the rest of that day!  This post is already long enough though, so the rest will have to wait for the next post. .

I love his chubby little cheeks:)