Baby Benjamin | Lake Charles Photographer

Lake Charles Photographer

He’s finally here! Somehow this pregnancy seemed to both fly by and last forever. I always felt like there was still so much to do, but at the same time, I couldn’t wait to meet him and hold him and kiss him. My due date was Christmas day, and I so hoped he’d come a little early so we could be home from the hospital for the holiday. Benjamin obliged, and on December 17th at 10:42am we got to meet our little boy!

That story starts on Sunday afternoon. I realize now I’d been having occasional contractions here and there all day, but because they didn’t hurt I assumed they were Braxton-Hicks contractions. We went to church and then at 3:30 I left to pick my mom up from the airport in Alexandria. The airport is an hour and 15 minutes from our house, and I felt kind of funny on the way there, but I again didn’t realize I was having actual contractions. I was distracted by talking to my mom on the way home and didn’t think much more about it.

By the time Stephen got home around 9:00 or 9:30 I was pretty sure I was having some kind of contractions, but they were still pretty painless and sporadic, so we watched an episode of the West Wing and went to bed. But I never fell asleep. Less than an hour later I woke Stephen up and told him we needed to get ready to go to the hospital!

It was an hour and 15 minute drive to the hospital and by the time we got there my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and starting to really hurt. Probably the worst part of labor for me was the next two hours when they had us in a tiny triage room (without any pain meds) while they tried to decide if they were going to admit me or not. After those two hours, I had only made a tiny bit of progress, which was discouraging, but they decided to admit me anyway and start me on Pitocin to get things going. I got an epidural shortly after that, and from that point on, everything went smoothly. I took two naps and then it was time to push! It felt like that part took forever, but I’m sure it was only about 20 minutes. And then we got to see our little boy! He showed off his lungs right away, and in the 3 seconds it took the nurses to towel him off and hand him to me, Stephen and I both started crying. We loved him before, but it’s amazing how much our world changed in that moment!