Isaac Ramie is here!

Our little guy is finally here! Isaac Ramie arrived on November 5th at 12:49 in the afternoon. He weighed 9lb. 4oz. and was 20 3/4 inches long. (That is 1oz. smaller than Josiah and 1/4 inch shorter than Josiah.) We will call Saac for short (pronounced like Zack). His middle name is derived from my middle name. We switched the letters of Marie around to make a boy name - Ramie.
On 11/5 I was 42 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I was 3 cm dilated. I had been having prodromal labor for weeks that had intensified greatly in the last few days. There were several times when I thought I was in labor, but the contractions just never progressed. We know now that I had quite a bit of water and baby wasn't able to get his head engaged. So, on 11/5 I was admitted to the hospital where they gave me a very, very small amount of pitocin to get my contractions going regularly. ( I was told that a normal induction the pitocin is at 6. They started me at 1/2.) My contractions did get going regularly and an hour later the doctor came in to break my water. Very quickly my contractions started getting harder and more regular.
I had planned on having a natural labor, but this was prior to being induced and having my water broken. That introduced a whole new element to me and was very nervous about having my labor started artificially. I did know that I wanted to wait long enough so that the epidural would not slow things down. When things started getting more intense we made a plan with the doctor to wait until I was at least 5-6 cm and at -1 to 0 station to get the epidural. Labor was progressing so quickly that I felt that I could do that. So, about an hour and a half after my water was broken I got the epidural. I was then 7cm and the baby was about -1. I labored for about another hour until I was 10cm and the baby was 0 station. At that point I didn't feel the need to push so we let the baby work his way down a little more. About 30 minutes later I finally felt the need to push.
When I started pushing I had this terrible pain up in my ribs. I guess Isaac had his foot up there helping out with the pushing. :-) I pushed until the baby the baby started to crown, then I lay back for a rest. When my next contraction came he began to present without my even pushing. In fact everyone was telling me to stop pushing because the dr. was still getting on his gown. I wasn't doing anything though, he was coming out whether or not we wanted him to! Pushing took about 15 minutes total and Isaac made his appearance. The dr. later said that he didn't even consider this an induction because I barely had any pitocin at all.
One of my favorite parts of the whole thing was when he was placed up on my chest and he began to cry. (My first baby was c-section so I didn't get to experience this. My second baby was placed on my chest, but quickly taken away because he wasn't breathing.) So, this was such a special experience. Matt then cut the cord. Speaking of Matt, he was so amazing! I couldn't ask for a better partner, friend and support than he was. He's such an encouragement to me and never fails to believe in me.
So, here we are, one week later. Things are going well. I feel great! There's no comparison to how good you can feel after a normal birth as compared to a c-section! Praise God for a healthy baby and good delivery!

I know this is a little fuzzy, but I thought it was so adorable. That's Aiden's hand when I first met his new brother.

He's enjoying a little rest and warm up.

This is right before we went to the hospital. Boy am I glad to have the little guy on the outside now!