welcome to this world!

He's here! Mason Allen was born this last Thursday, November 5th!

First let me say that I love, love, love my midwife. She is the best and I would never go to anyone else to have a child! I am so thankful for her and the person that she is! :)
She was a little off though in her expectations of what my labor/delivery would go like.
It basically ended up being VERY similar to Timber's birth. I went in, they broke my water about 9:30am and my contractions started very slowly. By 11:30am they started Pitocin. That helped a lot. My contractions started coming much more frequently and a lot stronger. Once I got to the point of "I probably can't take this much longer without screaming my head off" we called the anesthesiologist and he came and started an epi for me. That also made a huge difference because once it started working I went from being 5cm to 9cm in a matter of like an hour! By the time I was ready to push I was beyond numb. That wasn't so good. I pushed for almost 2 hours and baby still wasn't coming down past my pelvic bone. My midwife let me know that there was a chance that he wasn't going to come down any further and that I'd have to have a c-section. That certainly made me more determined to push this guy out! I did not want another c-section.......ever. I asked if we could turn my epi way down and that was all it took! Once I could feel my contractions again and feel where I was supposed to be pushing, Mason made his way down the birth canal and out. We welcomed him that evening at 10:29pm.

He came up onto my chest and we waited for the cord to stop pulsating before cutting it.

So needless to say, my labor wasn't as quick as my midwife thought it would be. And she was a little off on his size too. We were hoping for a baby smaller than 9lbs but we got a 10lb 10.9oz baby that was 22" long. Another ready made football player! I am so glad that we induced when we did and didn't wait till after 42wks. I would have surely ended up with an 11 pounder by then.

Anyway, we're all home now, breastfeeding is going well, he's a pretty good sleeper so far and all the other kids are in love with him. I am so thankful that the Lord has blessed us again with a beautiful, healthy baby. I'm also so thanful that my midwife had enough faith in me and in VBACs that she let me just keep pushing and didn't resort to the c-section.

Oh and Bobbi Jo, we did end up getting the vit k shot this time. Mason spent almost 4 hours in the birth canal, sideways! He did finally turn before he came out but had a huge bruise on the side of his very cony head. Gavin and I talked about it and felt that, in this situation, it was best. But otherwise he came home eye goop, vaccination and testing free. :)