Nathaniel Paul was born September 19, 2012 at 12:58 pm. He weighed 8lb 2oz and was 21 inches long! He's kind of awesome. It's quite amazing how much we love this kid.
Birth Story: Don't read any further if you don't want to see some total TMI happening.
First of all, Tyler put an event in our calender in February. He guessed the baby would be born September 18th at 8:32pm and weigh 7lb 9oz. At my appointment the week before, Dr. H laughed when T told him his weight guess saying he was bigger. But everything else? We thought he was going to be right...
The morning of the 18th, my mom and I ran about a thousand errands trying to get ready for the boy. We had a few small things that we needed before his arrival. We decided to eat lunch at Johnny Carino's. While we were at lunch, I told my mom I thought he was really low. I felt like he was poking me completely at the bottom of my belly. I knew he was still high, so it was bizarre. About half way through lunch I got up to use the restroom. I came back and sat down and told my mom that my water was potentially slowly breaking, but we just brushed it off. There was no gush, no contractions, just a little damp. Well, about 10 minutes later, we got up to leave and I literally couldn't walk out of the restaurant. Because I was soaking wet. I obviously have not been back to Carino's. I was laughing so hard and in complete disbelief. I said about a thousand times that I was either peeing uncontrollably or my water was breaking.
We called T on the way home and told him to get the bags ready, that we were coming home and going straight to the hospital. At this point, I had only felt one small contraction, so was still thinking it wasn't the real deal... total denial. We got to the hospital and went to check in. I told the girl at the desk that I was in labor and she straight up laughed at me. I laughed back and said I wouldn't belief it either if there wasn't a puddle between my legs. We had to wait for a room to be available and I really only felt a couple of small contractions.
When we got in our room, they checked me and I was only at a two... which I had been for 3 weeks. But my water had definitely broken, so we were there for the long haul!! 
Basically, the party started and we just hung out. I obviously started feeling a few contractions, but nothing major. They checked me at 6:40 and 9 and still had no progress, so my doctor requested we start pitocin. The nurses told us that with spontaneous water breaks, patients typically get 18 hours to get the baby out, my doctor was usually a little more lenient, but we decided to do the pit to hopefully have this boy.
{they were being so sweet and telling me when I was having a contraction... because my unmedicated self obviously couldn't feel them. ha!}
I was checked a few more times through the night with no change. The pit was doing nothing but cause pain. haha! By 7:15am, I had only progressed to a 2.5. I had thrown up through the last 5 or 6 contractions and was miserable, so I went ahead and got the epidural. Quite honestly, I had (quietly, to myself) decided at about 5am that I needed to get the epi if there wasn't significant change. I was pretty convinced that we were going to end in a section and figured, why stay in pain if I don't get to have him vaginally anyway? So I got an epi around 7:45 and immediately passed out for an hour. It was marvelous. I was so exhausted. My doctor came in around 11 to check again and to talk possibilities. I had progressed to a 3. In almost 24 hours of labor, most of that with a drug that was made to help you along. Obviously this wasn't going anywhere. He told me that it was up to me, and he would let me continue laboring if I wanted to, but was concerned that we would still end up with a section 12 hours later. I had been praying about it all morning and felt complete peace that if I hadn't progressed, I needed to have the cesarean. When I told Dr. H that I wanted to go ahead and have him, Tyler and my mom literally cheered. Funny people.
I was taken into the operating room at 12:41, my mom and Tyler joined soon after and Nathaniel was born at 12:58. With a full head of hair! Dr. H told me later that I could've labored for 17 more hours, and he still wouldn't have come out. He was so not in position, which is why I wasn't progressing. He was sunny side up and his head was in such a position that he just couldn't drop. One of his ears was curled up, so pretty sure he had been stuck there awhile.
{what up, world?}
{showing daddy the hair}
{meeting my precious son}
{no one mentioned the hair to me, so I didn't know for a bit!}
{my loves}
{so incredibly in love with this boy}
