Whittington Ellis Richey is born!

So, here's the story...  The Thursday after Easter (April 24) I started having some pretty intense and painful contractions.  Jon came home from work and took me to the clinic to be checked.  My doctor was out of town so I saw someone else.  He said I wasn't dilated and sent me home.  Jon took off the next day so I could rest and I spent most of the weekend lying around and trying to stay hydrated.  The contractions eased up a little, but all the following week I continued to feel pretty horrible.  I'd have painful contractions that would wake me up at night and I barely slept all that week.  On top of all that, the girls had dance recital practices nearly every day that week.  It was exhausting so I was mostly contributing my discomfort to that.  I went back and forth on thinking I was about to go into labor or thinking I was just tired from chasing around two active little girls.

On Saturday, May 3, the girls had their final dress rehearsal for dance from 9:30-noon.  During that time, my contractions were getting consistently stronger, but I tried to just ignore them.  When I got home, I ate lunch, laid down on the couch and starting timing them.  They were around 4-5 minutes apart.  My parents and Jon's mom were on their way into town for the dance recital that was going to be on Sunday.  As I was lying on the couch, timing my contractions and becoming more and more uncomfortable, I made up my mind to go into labor & delivery when our parents arrived.  I thought it was the perfect time to go since our parents would be here to stay home with the girls and I knew my doctor was on call that day.

Within 30 minutes of my parents arriving, Jon and I were headed to the hospital.  However, since it was still two weeks before I was supposed to be having him, I was in denial that it would actually happen that day.  We didn't take anything but my purse and camera with us.  We sat in labor & delivery for three hours being monitored and routinely checked by the nurses.  I wasn't dilating at all, but my contractions were getting closer together and stronger.  I was in pretty severe pain.  Finally my doctor came by, looked at all my charts and said, "let's do this!"  I was so relieved.  At that point I was telling Jon that we were NOT leaving there without a baby.  I was miserable!  My doctor also said, "I can't send you home having contractions like this.  You're likely to bust open your old c-section incisions."  Talk about scary!  Within an hour we were in the OR, bringing little Whitt Ellis into this world.  As my doctor was cutting me open, she said, "I'm glad we did this today.  Things are pretty thinned out down here."  Meaning, I guess, that my old incisions were stretched to the max.  Whit was born kicking and screaming and off he and Jon went to the nursery.  A few minutes later, the nursery called in to the OR to tell us his weight.  Eight pounds and three ounces!  My doctor said, "Now I'm really glad we did this today.  If we'd waited until the 15th he'd have been over 9 pounds!"  Boy, was I glad, too!

He was born May 3, 2014 at 5:58pm.  He weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces and was 20.75" long!  My biggest baby and at 37.6 weeks.

The only little hiccup we had, was Whitt's blood sugar was a little low at birth.  That turned out to be a bit of a blessing because I got to hold him and nurse him as soon as I got out of recovery, before he'd even had his bath since they were concerned about getting his blood sugar back up.  They checked it several times over the next 12 hours and it was higher each time, so no worries there.

I'm so glad that his grandparents (minus Big T) happened to be in town when he chose to arrive.

I love this door-hanger a lady at my hometown church made for me.

The girls were excited about their Bitty Baby big sister gifts.

The next day the girls and their grandparents were there bright and early.

Jon's quiet time turned into nap time.  Nobody ever gets any sleep in the hospital.

That night the girls had their dance recital.  I hated to miss, but I'll get a dvd and I'm glad everyone else could still go.

Shannon came to the hospital to keep me company while everyone was at the recital.  She thought Whitt was cold so she bundled him all up.

I had little gifts for the girls to give them after their recital.  I was afraid they'd start expecting a present every night after the two previous evenings.  

The dancers brought pizza and cookie cakes back to the hospital after the recital for us all to enjoy.

And the next day we got to go home!  When we left the hospital, his weight was down to 7lb 12oz, which is pretty normal.

We were so excited to bring our little man home to the world of princesses and dress-up.  He is going to rock our world and we can't wait for all the "boy" he'll bring to the mix.