The Little Man's Entrance into the world...

Ecstatic and over-the-top excited to announce the birth of our son, Finn Harper Hoyle, born at 7:57 P.M. on January 31, 2011. He weighed in at 8 lb 13 oz and 21" long, and he is gorgeous. I know, I know I am biased, but honestly--he is gorgeous.

Now, while we are very excited about his presence--his entrance into the world could have been much less exciting to us. We started dealing with contractions on Friday night...that's right Friday! That is not a typo. I was in what they call prodromal labor. Prodromal labor is what they used to call false labor. That's right this is not even pre-labor. It's just pure hell. It is literally contractions that are approximately 10-20 minutes apart for undetermined amounts of time. Most people who have this type of labor have contractions for a few hours, and then they stop. Well, I am not one of those people. I was in "false labor" for about 52 hours. Also, I didn't sleep well on Thursday, so lets add that in. I don't know if you're aware, but you can't sleep for just 10 minutes and get good sleep. On top of this, when I laid down, my contractions got worse--more painful, closer together, etc. So, I did not sleep...at all for all of that time. Finally, on Sunday night I decided I wasn't going to time them anymore, because it is just too annoying. So, I took a bath (doctor's orders), took 2 Tylenol P.M. (Doctor's orders) and tried to go to sleep. That worked for...oh wait, yeah about 10 minutes until I had a contraction. So, then I'm all drugged up, and up all night. Around 12-1 am, I think that the contractions are getting worse, and closer together. So I start timing them--they were between 1-4 cm apart and I started to lose blood (if that bothers you...it only gets more graphic from here so be prepared) and I call my doula, and my midwife. They both say--go to the hospital. YES! I have never been so happy to be told "go to the hospital" in my life. Why? Because that may mean that they will make this crap STOP! At that point, all I wanted was SLEEP!

Randy runs around like a crazy man for a few minutes getting things situated, while I...have some more contractions. We drove the hospital around 2:00 am Monday morning (are you counting...that's a long time). We were both excited, and completely nervous that they would send us home. That would have been my nightmare.

We got to the hospital, got all checked in, met our doula (Louise--more about her later), and waited to be checked. Very nervous about this process, because I had been to the doctor on Friday morning, and was only 80% effaced and maybe a centimeter dilated. GOOD NEWS--I was 3-4 centimeters dilated, 90% effaced. They decided they were keeping us, and we were having a baby. My contractions did pretty well for a while, and I got to 5 cm; then, they slowed down again (not stopped, they never stopped). So, through a discussion with the midwife, nurse and doula--we decided to start Pitocin, which was scary because it wasn't in our birth plan. BUT, we are flexible people and do what we're told.

Well, Pitocin did it's job and it did it very quickly. My contractions were 1-3 minutes apart for the rest of the day. It was AWFUL. I mean just terrible, excruciating pain. Randy asked me to describe it, and all I could think of is someone squeezing the muscles in your body until they felt like they were going to pass out. This process lasted ALL DAY...and I literally mean that. We finally started to push around 4. It was the worst pain of my life, and the worst hours of my entire life.

Now, before I go on I would like to tell all of you women who I know who either (1) are pregnant or (2) going to ever be pregnant again...GET A DOULA! Honestly, the people who got me through the day were Louise, Randy and the nurses. Number 1 on that list is Louise. She was awesome. She told me exactly what to do, helped me so much, I absolutely love her. She had another birth going on the same day, and she had to leave us for a short amount of time. When she came back, I literally cried and said to her "Please don't leave me again!" and she didn't. If you're even pondering doing it naturally (no judgment if you're not--believe me, I understand), you NEED a doula. Yes, they are expensive but they are the best money you could possibly spend. Jessica, is the back-up doula that Louise called when she had to leave us for a little while, she was also AMAZING, and then stayed with us through the rest of the birth...just because. We weren't paying her, we didn't necessarily "need" her, but she stayed with us. Also--the nurses at St. Anthony hospital are absolutely amazing...and I loved LOVED every one of them (some specific ones if you want to know specific names). I can't believe how great everyone has been throughout the entire process, and I cannot rave enough about Louise especially.

Now, there is absolutely no way that I could have gotten through the transition phase of labor (7-10 cm) without these support people. That was the worst part, and it sucked terribly. Finally, we got to the point where I wanted to push. Now, before I start this, I want to tell you that this is what Randy has called "The most traumatic experience of his life"--not specifically the pushing stage, but the entire day. Pushing for normal people lasts 1-2 hours or so. Not me, apparently I don't like to do anything the easy way. So, we started pushing...if you notice the time that he was delivered, we pushed for about 4 hours. It sucked. Then, after four hours they had to use the vacuum to extract him, also not in our birth plan. They also had called down the anesthesiologist in case we had to do a C-section. It was a crazy time. Randy said that this is when I handled my pain the best--during the pushing stage, which is crazy to me.

Then, after trying with the vacuum 3-4 times, Finn finally made his entrance into the world. And we didn't hear him cry. That is terrifying. We kept saying "Is he okay?" and no one would answer us. They would say things like "he looks pink!" Well, I don't know what that means. They cut his cord (also, not in the birth plan) and took him away immediately. We didn't get to hold him, I didn't even get to see him. They took him away and brought him to the nursery, where they had to call the neo-natologist to come in and observe him. Also terrifying. It was heartbreaking to have to leave him. The doctor came in and told us that they were monitoring his vitals, and there was a moment where we thought he may even be having seizure activity, which is the most terrifying thing ever.

This is about the time that Randy lost it, and I couldn't really do anything. Randy is so awesome, and wonderful, and I know he would have rather been the one in all the pain, and it was terrifying for him to have to give up control.

After monitoring him for a few hours (said the doctor who came in out of the goodness of his heart from home to monitor him for 12 hours) the doctor was positive enough to leave him for the night, which was a blessing.

So, that was it. The story of Finn's birth (with a lot of gory details including...pooping on the table, blood leaking on the floor, Randy almost passing out, and other disgusting things...left out). He is absolutely beautiful, and we just got to hold him. He is perfect and he is fearfully and wonderfully made.