Katie and Paul: Garrett Paul

It has been almost a year since my last post....a lot has happened since then. We had a baby!!!

Garrett Paul Johansen

Born: October 8th 2012 at 6:25pm

22 inches long and 9lbs 6 oz

It was a long day... I started having contractions at about 2am on Oct. 8th. I wasn't sure what was going on, so I thought I'd count it out to see if they were real. They were about 40-60 sec long with about 8-10 mins inbetween each one. I did this for about 2 hours and finally decided to wake up Paul. We called the hospital and asked what we should do, and they told us to call the Dr's office. Well it was 4 am...the Dr's office was not open. So we decided to just head to the hospital. The contractions got worse and worse as we drove there, and I was getting a little hungry. Paul suggested that we stop to get something to eat, but I was in pain and just wanted to get to the hospital. BIG MISTAKE!!!! (always eat before you go have a baby, because they will not let you eat!)

Once at the hospital they took us in and I had to change into my gown and they checked my contractions and dilation. I was only dilated to a 1, but was effaced 90%. So they decided to admit me. They took me to the Labor and Delivery room and started the Epidural right away. Thank Goodness!!

All I could eat was lollipops and Ice chips....booooo!

I took a nap for a little while, since I hadn't fallen asleep at all, but then I could start feeling the right side of my body. And the contractions were worse by this time. They adjusted my epidural, but it didn't help. The anesthesiologist had to come back in and re do the epidural a second time. This time my left side was incredibly numb and my right side was the right amount numb. Weird feeling.

Around noon the Dr came in and broke my water because I still wasn't dilating. Then around 2:00 the nurse came in check my dilation and it was at a 9! She said she would be back in a half hour to start pushing. When she came in I pushed for about a half hour and then was exhausted and wanted to take a break. Because I hadn't had anything to eat my body was faint and weak. I had already threw up 3 times! They gave me a 30 min break, and then I started to push again...FOREVER!! I didn't think that I would make it...multiple times I kept saying, I can't push anymore, I am too exhausted! around 4:45 you could see his head starting to come down, but he still didn't arrive till 6:25! It felt like forever! But finally there he was...our cute little man!