Joshua's birth

By now you should have heard that I'm a mommy! Joshua James Brown was born on November 23rd at 1:58 A.M. weighing 7 pounds and 13 ounces and measuring 20 inches long. Here is the story of his birth.

I began having light cramps Friday night into Saturday morning. I got up Saturday morning and was fine until about 10:30 when I started to have cramps again and they started to get stronger. I then figured they must be contractions but figured they were just false labor pains or Braxton-Hicks because they weren't very painful. They began to pick up in both intensity and frequency but were irregular and short, lasting only 30 seconds or less. They would become closer together and then start to become further apart. By the time Jamie got home around 12:30 we decided to call the drs office because they were fairly frequent even though they were short. She told us to go take a walk around the block and that would either make them stronger or make them go away. They definately got stronger. By the time we got back from our walk I had one that was strong enough to make me double over so we decided to call the dr back. She said to go to the hospital to get checked out to see if I was making progress. This was around 5pm.

We went to the hospital and my contractions were pretty strong. They were around 5 min apart but only lasting around 30 seconds. They were also getting stronger with each one. I was brought into a room and was checked. I was already 3 cm dilated! So I was admitted. I got into my room and my contractions began to pick up some more. Not long after I was checked by the dr. I was 5 cm dilated! This was around 7pm. We decided that it was definately time for my epidural as I was in some serious pain. I felt a whole lot better once it kicked in. I spent the next few hours much more comfortable, not feeling a thing. I was dilating pretty quickly, by 11pm I was 9 cm. Around midnight I was complete and feeling a little pressure. The nurse had me attempt a couple of pushes but they didn't move him down so she thought I should wait until I was feeling constant pressure. I felt more when I was laying on my side and around 1 am I started to push. Joshua was born less than an hour later.