Thursday, August 7, 2008

The beginning of Life


Sooooo This is going to be a long one!

Birth Story:
Since the day I found out Alex was going to be a boy people told me your gonna have a superbowl baby. A week before my due date both Grandmas and Grandpa Stu came to visit. Everyday for the week my phone never stopped ringing and Stu would walk in every morning and say "No baby yet"...he is lucky to be alive after the 5th day of it =) But my due date came and went and Grandma and Grandpa Richardson were off to Hawaii. So at 2:30am on February 3, 2008 I woke up with pains and knew I was in labor. I got up and started to keep track of the contractions which were 10 min apart exactly. At 8 am Patrick and Grandma Rud got up and my contractions had gotten to about 5-7 min apart. Around 1pm they were 5 min apart for an hour and 45 min (at the military hospital they tell you not to come in until your contractions are 5 min apart for 2 whole hours) as I was preparing my bags to leave they stopped completely...grrrrr! About 30 min later they were back even stronger but still 7 min apart so Mom and I kept track again. This same pattern continued so we decided it would be a while so Annie and Jeremy came over to our "Superbowl Party." After the game I realized I had been standing since 2:30am and was super exhausted but laying down made the contractions unbearable. Finally around 10pm I just couldn't handle the back pain anymore and figured I was 7 or 8 cm. WRONG! When I got to the empty labor and delivery floor they told me that I was going to have go walk around the hospital for 2 hours because I was barely 4 cm....HELL NO, I was tired and discouraged at this point so I decided that I wanted DRUGS!!!!! The doctor on call said that I could get a room instead because the floor was empty and they called the anesthesiologist. By the time she came an hour later I was 8 cm but to tired to go any longer without. YEAH for epidurals =) The doctor told me at 2am that this baby was coming soon so I called Annie to come if she wanted to be in the waiting room when he was born so she rushed there, my sister and Dad surprised me at got there at 3 am Then we WAITED and WAITED and WAITED. It was a funny scene actually, I was wide awake feeling good from the Epidural and Patrick Mom Dad Heather and Annie are all fighting to stay awake. Finally at 6 they let me start pushing, well 3.5 hours later, Patrick counting to ten 1000 times and a panic attack with Mom, the "head" doctor came in and was upset they let me push that long so he told us I had one shot using the vacuum then I was going to have to have a c-section. Well 2 pushes with the vacuum later Alex James Richardson was born at 9:54am February 4, 2008. His hand was by his cheek so he couldn't get over my pelvic bone. All I could think when I saw him was 1. look at those big hands feet and penis (yes I said penis, I have to remember everything remember?) 2. what is wrong with his head (see picture). We asked every doctor for the next 24 hours if they thought his head would go back to normal. Because he had such a rough start they decided to whisked him away for lots of observation but Patrick went to. I was spent and went right to sleep. Patrick got to give him his first bath which I wish I was able to see. After a few hours they took me upstairs to my room...aka closet, which made me want to cry but Patrick sat with me and finally around 6pm they brought baby boy richardson to see me. I was sooo happy so see him and we finally decided between Alex and Kyle for his name. After we told everyone his name was Alex we started wanting to change it but of course we didn't. Since the room was so small and Patrick is so big I was on my own that night with Alex. Lucky for me later that night they moved me to a BIG room =). February 6th we finally went home and decided after a few hours that we HAD to move to our new house two weeks early, so Patrick packed the house and loaded the truck for 2 whole days and moved us into our house. And so Alex's life began =)

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