Ethan's Arrival

After much anticipation and a long weekend, Ethan Paul Crolley finally entered the world on Sunday, March 4 at 6:04pm. He weighed 8lbs, 9oz and was 21 inches.

I'm going to continue the story from the last blog post with the entire birth story, so if you just want pictures, scroll down.

Just before 2:00pm on Saturday, the hospital finally told me to come in at 3:30. We were so excited to finally have a definite time. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Paul's dad who had come into town to welcome his newest grandson because he had to work the following day. I was so sad he came all this way and wasn't able to meet Ethan when he was born. At least Olivia was able to have a blast with Grandaddy Crolley while we waited and waited all day Friday and Saturday for some kind of news from the hospital. While the adults were getting frustrated and antsy, Olivia had fun passing the time by playing with Grandma Jayne's iPhone.

Once Paul and I arrived at the hospital and I checked in, we still had to wait an hour before they told us what room to go to. I finally make it to the labor and delivery room where we were then told that my cervix was just a little thicker than they wanted it to be. They said they could blast me with a bunch of pitocin, but they'd rather not do that and decided to give me cervidil instead to soften it. That meant an extra night in the hospital for me. Grrr! So I sent Paul home to get a good night's rest in bed and be ready for me bright and early in the morning.

I ended up having lots of contractions on my own throughout the evening. They were coming 2-3 minutes apart, but they weren't very strong. Because of this, the OB decided to break my water around 6:30am to see if they would intensify and I would go into labor on my own instead of giving me pitocin. Unfortunately that didn't happen, so I ended up getting pitocin around 10:00am. I tried going without an epidural as long as I could, but they started to feel extremely uncomfortable and I knew I still had a long while to go, so I ended up asking for one - it was a good thing I did...

The nurse checked me around 4:45ish and I was dilated to a 10. Time to set the room up for pushing! My epidural had run out by this point, but the nurse said it would last another hour or 2 so she didn't want to give me more. Well, when she went to inform the OB that I was ready to push, we found out she was in the middle of a c-section. After the c-section, she had someone else to deliver a baby to first. So I had to wait for over an hour to be able to push. All you ladies out there who have had a baby know that when your body wants to push, it's hard to fight it. Not fun! All this time the epidural is slowly wearing off.

The OB finally made it to my room and I started pushing at 5:00pm. The epidural was still doing its thing at first, but I ended up pushing for just over an hour, so the last half hour was terrible! I felt way more than I wanted to. I was hurting!!! The nurse did start another epidural at some point but didn't turn it up very high because she didn't want to numb me like crazy since I didn't have that much longer to go. I wanted to scream at her to turn it up, but I was trying to conserve my energy for getting this kid out of me. Paul was being so sweet the entire time. He could tell I was in lots of pain (I couldn't even relax between pushes), so he kept whispering encouraging words in my ear the entire time. I honestly don't know how anyone has a baby without an epidural. I know that everyone has different pain tolerance levels and everyone's body handles things differently. I don't have a low tolerance for pain, so apparently I just don't handle labor pains very well.

The best feelings in the world occurred at 6:04pm: extreme pain relief and the joy of having a pink, screaming baby on my chest.

There were a few things that didn't go exactly as they should have. First of all, Ethan came out facing the wrong way. His head came first, but he came out facing up instead of down. The nurse and OB told me that the baby is actually harder to push out this way...no wonder it hurt. Secondly, Ethan came out with the umbilical cord around his neck. Fortunately this didn't cause any problems during delivery - it apparently wasn't wrapped tightly. And lastly, his umbilical cord had a knot in it! The OB said this could've happened at the beginning of pregnancy when the baby has lots of room to move and the cord knotted up or it could've just happened during delivery. There's no way to tell when it happened, but thank goodness it didn't cut off any supplies he needed from me throughout the pregnancy if it happened earlier!

Daddy and his little boy

Look at that sweet face!

Mommy is so excited to hold him in her arms instead of feeling him claw around inside of her :)

Daddy, Mommy, and baby

Meeting one of his grandmas for the first time

At first this little girl could care less about the baby and had fun exploring the hospital room instead. She was checking every little thing out. (Pardon her messy face.)

Now Olivia wants to hold her baby brother

Being a good big sister trying to soothe Ethan as Daddy gets him dressed to go home

We love having this little guy in our family!