Spencer & Kelsey: June 2011

First and foremost,

Happy Father's Day to the man who has raised me these past 22 years. I could not have chosen a more perfect father for myself. You are such an amazing example of strong moral character, dedication, loyalty, perseverance, and much much more. Both you and Mom have sacrificed so much to raise me and my nine siblings and I couldn't be more grateful. Thank you for having such a witty sense of humor and bringing light to difficult times. Thank you for teaching me how to live frugally. Thank you for teaching me the importance of attending my church meetings and serving the Lord in any way possible. You have always been the voice of reason that I needed and the best bear hug that a daughter could ask for.

I Love you Dad.

Happy Father's Day to my Father-in-Law. I am pretty sure that I married into the best family ever. Thank you for teaching your children what matters most in life. I have learned so much from your son these past three years and I know that it has much to do with how you and your wife have chosen to live your life. Thank you for loving me like your own child and welcoming me into your home. And most importantly, thank you for being an amazing example for Spencer. I know that he looks up to you so much and treasures your advice and words of wisdom.

And of course, Happy Father's Day to my sweetheart.

This has been the best Father's Day to date because this year we get to share it with the new love of both of our lives, our little Colby. I seriously cannot even begin to express how much my love has grown for this husband of mine since Colby has entered our lives. He is such a sweet father already and it's only been four weeks. :) Spencer is so patient with Colby and is so willing to bend over backwards for this little boy. I knew he would be a good father when I married him, but he has far surpassed anything I thought he would be.

I love you Spencer!

I still can't believe that I am posting this three days before my actual due date. I am so glad that our little man decided to come a little early and that he also came completely healthy. We absolutely LOVE him!

The last few weeks in this pregnancy had been the most challenging of them all, to say the least. Mostly because it tried my patience and I really had to remind myself how to keep occupied and trust in the Lord and His timing.

I went in for my 36 week check up and was dilated to 1 cm. and 70% effaced. The day after the check up, I began to have some intense pre labor symptoms which stuck around until Colby decided to come, only becoming worse as the days drew closer to his arrival.

On Friday, May 27, I went in for my 38 week appointment and was told that I was now dilated to a 2, with 80% effacement and was asked if I wanted to set an induction date. We scheduled an induction on June 6th, to deliver on the 7th, four days before my due date. Little did I know that I wouldn't make it that long!

While at church on Sunday, May 29, I felt like I had been leaking amniotic fluid, or something of the sort. We decided to leave a little bit early and went home to rest and decide if I needed to go to the hospital to be checked just in case. After a few conversations with some friends and a nurse, Spencer and I decided that it wouldn't hurt anything to just go and be checked. I knew that I wasn't in full labor, as you can tell from the smile I was able to pull in the pic below:

I definitely wasn't comfortable and painless haha but it did not feel like real labor (at least what everyone told me it would feel like). The nurse did the exam and they determined that there was no amniotic fluid seen in the test, but that it was possible that there was a high break which could be causing a leak. Nevertheless, they discharged me and we went home. They did let me know however that I was now 100% effaced... I was totally a ticking time bomb.

We spent Monday in Mesa celebrating Memorial Day with Spencer's extended family as well as mattress shopping... not the most fun thing to do when you are 9 months pregnant, but I tried to be a trooper and kept reminding myself how excited I would be if we found one that we liked. And what do ya know, we did! And it has been absolutely wonderful and totally worth the shopping trip.

Back to the story.

All day Monday I was completely uncomfortable. I had so many braxton hicks contractions that it turned into feeling like I had a constant, hard braxton hicks contraction for the rest of the day. I seriously felt like my stomach was going to explode out. We finally got home later that evening and I was out of commission.

Tuesday morning I woke up obviously feeling horrible and told Spence that the only thing I wanted to do that day was to clean the house and if he could help me that would be wonderful. I had not been feeling all too great for the past two weeks before and our house demonstrated the effects of that all too well. Being the good hubby that he is, he stopped everything and helped me pick up the house.

Around 4 p.m. I started having real labor contractions every 30-40 minutes or so. They continued throughout the night and I would wake up a few times every hour. Finally at 4 a.m. they were so painful that I just decided to get out of bed. Around 4:45 they were about 5 minutes apart, but my water still hadn't broken. I called the hospital to see what would happen if I came in even though my water hadn't broken yet. They told me that they would have me walk around the hospital and see if I could dilate one centimeter in an hour. If I could, then they would keep me, if not they would send me home... um ya, ok. No thanks. I decided to just keep laboring at home until the contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. By 5:30 they were 3 minutes apart and only getting harder so I decided to wake up Spencer and tell him to grab his bags and load in the car! It was time.

I checked in to the hospital and had my exam completed. Sure enough I was 100% effaced and dilated to a 4, which apparently is the magic number because at that point the nurse told me since I was a four, they would keep me. Thank goodness!

They took me to my delivery room around 7:15 and sent out my blood work so that they could get my epidural started. In the meantime my doctor came in and checked me. I was already dilated to a 5 and I was so effaced that she had a hard time figuring out what everything was in there... she couldn't believe how softened I was and that my water hadn't broken yet. She told me that she would wait to break my water until after my epidural because I was so effaced that the contractions would be horrible. Love her! Thank you Dr. Austin!

Here I am in my delivery room holding on for dear life trying to make it through those contractions. They were pretty rough at this point... hitting strong for about 5 minutes straight and then giving me about a 6 minute break in between contractions... it was a little strange and not what the nurse expected. She let me know that if my contractions didn't regulate after the doc broke my water, she would start me on a little pitocin to see if that would help them regulate.

I finally got my shot from heaven at 10:30 a.m. :) I immediately felt the relief and couldn't have been happier. Spencer had been sitting in the delivery room freezing his little booty off because apparently it felt like it was snowing in there... I felt great! :) So I sent him home really quick to grab a jacket and some lunch since I wouldn't want him leaving me anytime after the baby was here (by the way, we live 5 minutes from the hospital so I wasn't too worried). While he was out I tried to take a nap but Colby's little bum was pushing up into my ribs so bad that it was hard to fall asleep. Boy was I ready for him to be out of me. Spencer got back to the hospital and we tried to watch a little bit of TV before I was fully dilated. My contractions had regulated on their own, so that meant no Pitocin for me... Woohoo! The nurse was in and out of the room, but at 12:30 she decided to check me again and see how I was progressing. She started the exam and quickly looked up at me and said, "Oh! That's his head! You are definitely a ten... you can start pushing." She sounded so at ease about it that it really seemed surreal haha I couldn't believe it had gone so fast! I had dilated 4 cm. in two hours!

My epidural had worn off a little bit so she pushed the button and gave me a little more meds before we started the pushing. We let that settle in for about 20-30 minutes then the nurse came back in around 1:15 wanting to start the process. We started with a practice push (sets of 3 pushes) to see how things would go. After the first set I felt a little light headed and turned to Spence and said, "Wow! Now I know why this pushing thing can be SO exhausting!" And the next thing I remember is waking up to Spencer saying to the nurse, "Um, her eyes are completely dilated... Kelsey?! Kelsey?!" I finally came to and they immediately put an oxygen mask on my face and turned me on my right side. Apparently I had something called a vegal reflex and it honestly felt like a blackout... but I was still awake. It was really strange. I was fine, although I really did feel totally and completely wiped out already after one push, but Colby's heart rate had dropped which is why the oxygen mask went on and I was turned to my right. It really freaked Spencer out though, I don't blame him one bit. I'm sure if I was in his shoes and he was the one blacking out, I would be scared out of my mind!

We waited about two contractions to let Colby catch up, then I pushed two more sets on my side. My nurse called in the doctor and they flipped me on my back again. Dr. Austin watched one set of pushes and said, "Ok, this baby is coming! Let me get changed." She threw on her extra scrubs and was ready by the next contraction. They told me to push... so I pushed... and he practically FLEW out! His head and the rest of his body came out all in one push, and it was over. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that quick so when my belly dropped a little bit, I looked down and was shocked to see my baby already! It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.

So after tons of pre-labor,

10 hours of labor,

and less than 30 minutes of pushing

we welcomed this little guy to our family: