Talan James McCrea
Born June 22, 2012 at 5:11 p.m.
7 lbs. 9 oz., 19 1/2 inches
That face makes me melt! Our beautiful baby boy has finally arrived and we have already been so blessed to have him be a part of our family. My due date was June 21st, but the day came and went without me feeling any different. To be honest, I was actually ok with it because 2 days earlier I caught a cold that made me absolutely miserable, and I really didn't want to go into labor while I was still sick, or have a new baby to take care of while sick. So, Brent and I spent the evening walking to 7-Eleven to get slurpees and watching the Miami Heat win the Championship (yay!). I went to bed still feeling no different.
Around 3:00 a.m. that night I woke up to my first contraction - at least the first one I felt. They probably started earlier and I was still sleeping. I wasn't quite sure that's what it was at first, until I realized that they were coming pretty consistently every 10 minutes. Around 4 a.m. was when I admitted to myself that yes, this was it, labor was starting. I woke Brent up to tell him, because I didn't know what we were going to do - Brent had a test that day that it was the last day to take! Well, he fell back asleep pretty quickly, but I was awake the rest of the night because as soon as I would start to fall asleep another one would hit.
By 7 a.m. my contractions were pretty consistently 5 minutes apart, but only lasting about 30 seconds each. We decided it was time to get ready to go to the hospital! We left around 8 and were into our room by 8:30. When we got there I was still only dilated to 2 1/2 cm, so we waited an hour. Still no change. So the doctor told me to walk around the Labor and Delivery floor for an hour to see if that would help things progress. As we were walking, the contractions got closer together and more intense, but were still only lasting about 30 seconds. When we were done with our walk, there was still no change! So they decided to give me a percocet for the pain and send me home to rest. I was pretty discouraged because what my doctors had told me about when to go to the hospital turned out to be false - all along they had said when contractions were 5 minutes apart for at least an hour and were too painful to walk or talk through, go to the hospital. So much for that!
Well, the percocet did absolutely nothing for the pain. All it did was make me very drowsy so that I could sleep in between contractions. After sleeping on and off for about an hour, the contractions go really, really intense! I had Brent start timing them, and they were only 2 minutes apart and were lasting 60 seconds. After timing for 20 minutes, we decided we needed to get to the hospital right away. I was in a lot of pain and was feeling super nauseous. Rather than parking the car like we did the first time, we went to the valet parking and Brent rushed to get me a wheel chair. We really freaked the valet parking attendant when he saw how much pain I was in. He thought I was going to have the baby right there! We checked back in and by this point I was in so much pain that all I could do was keep my eyes closed and focus on breathing. I couldn't breathe properly though because I was still sick and had a completely stuffed up nose. The nurse checked my cervix and I almost cried when she said I was at 4 cm - I could get my epidural! They paged the anesthesiologist right away, but it took an hour before he finally got there and had it in.
This is me AFTER the epidural, finally able to open my eyes, breathe normally, and even smile! Epidurals are the greatest creation ever made!
Once I had the epidural and it was in full force, the nurse checked me again and to hers and our astonishment, I was already at 8 1/2 cm! She called the doctor in to break my water, and when he did, he said "Well that did the trick - you're at 10 cm and ready to start pushing!" Brent and I looked at each other in shock! We had only been back at the hospital for an hour and our little baby boy was about to be here soon!
After only an hour of pushing, our sweet baby Talan was here! I didn't even realize he was out until I heard him start to cry. And when I heard him cry, I started to cry!
After they cleaned him off a bit, weighed and measured him, they brought him to me for our skin-to-skin time.
Best moment of my life!
After about an hour of skin-to-skin and our first attempt at nursing, his Daddy finally got to hold him for the first time. He did so good through the whole labor! He was the best support person I could have ever asked for and didn't even seem phased by the amount of pain I was in (he usually starts to feel light headed when he sees me in any kind of pain, so I was really worried). He also didn't have any interest in seeing anything going on "down there" at first, but the nurse kind of forced him to help with everything and he ended up being a part of the whole process! I was so proud of him.
Now a family of 3!
His first bath
Such a content baby
Coming home from the hospital!
I could not be more grateful that everything worked out smoothly and almost exactly as I had planned. It even worked out perfectly that he waited just long enough to let us watch Lebron win the NBA Championship - I went into labor only 5 hours after! So of course we had to name him after Lebron James in honor of the win (though that was the plan all along!) Talan is a happy, healthy baby with two parents who love him more than anything in the world.
