Introducing Finn Michael French

This morning I woke up early and asked Shawn if he had any meetings and if he could work from home. I had a feeling that today was the day. I had my first contraction at 6:04 AM and they were 8 minutes apart for about 30 minutes and then became 6-7 minutes apart. We called the on-call doctor and told her our situation and she said to come on in. We left the house at 7:17 AM and headed to the hospital. It was about 8:00 AM by the time I got up to labor and delivery.

I got checked into my room and my nurse registered me . . . oops, I forgot to preregister!! My nurse checked me and I was 6 cm. My doctor came by soon after that to see how I was doing. I got up to use the restroom around 9:45 and was in some pain. I decided at that point to get the epidural; there was no way I wanted to get up again and feel that pressure! Dr. Anding came back around 10:20 AM and checked me and I was 8 cm and he decided to rupture my water since my contractions were pretty regular at 4 mins apart. He asked the nurse to check me in an hour at 11:20 and to let him know how I was doing.

I was still in quite a bit of pain and feeling every contraction, even after the epidural. Anesthesia came in and gave me some pain medicine straight into my epidural. They did this pretty frequently until I delivered. The same thing happened with Ally as well and that's why I was holding off on getting the epidural since it did not work as expected. Anesthesia said that when you progress so fast, sometimes the medicine doesn't have a chance to kick in. Since I kept feeling a lot of pressure, my nurse decided to check me around 11:00 and I was at 10 cm and fully effaced. She called for the doctor to get the ball rolling.

After 4-5 rounds of pushing, Finn Michael French made his debut at 11:28 am weighing in at 8 lbs 5 oz and 20 3/4 inches long. Such a sweet and beautiful baby boy! He nursed great the first hour and has since then as well. I can't believe that he is here! We are so blessed to have Finn with us and his older brother and sister are so excited as well!