Here's the story...of a baby named Benson

Everything started the night of my birthday, March 4th. I thought my water was leaking, but I knew it hadn't broke since I already experienced that with Weston. I wasn't having any contractions so we decided to hold off on going to the hospital because I did not want to be sent home. Around 5:30am on March 5th I was having contractions every 30 minutes and was spotting, but by the time I woke up, they were gone :(

Around 10:30 they started up again, but were really irregular, but I thought we should go to the hospital, so Casey came home from work, Jason came and picked up Weston and we were off. I got checked in and was dilated to a 4/5, but they said my water hadn't leaked or broke, so they sent me home to walk for 2 hours. I couldn't believe it. I thought being dilated to a 4 was shoe-in for admission, and I was almost a 5, but no go. Casey and I went to In-N-Out for lunch, then home, and I walked around our living room and kitchen (it forms a circle) for 2 hours. I also ate some pineapple because I've read before that it might help :)

Around 2:30pm we left for the hospital again. I had been having contractions every 5-6 minutes while I was walking, but on the drive back, they had stopped. I was sure they were going to send me home. We checked in again, I was put in a room to be checked, and right after they had hooked up the equipment to monitor the baby I had a huge contraction and my water broke, which means automatic admission. Thank goodness! My labor and delivery nurse (Liberty) came and took me to my room around 4pm and asked if I wanted to have a doctor or midwife to deliver Benson, and I opted for a midwife because I had heard such good things. My midwife's name was Morning Waters. Doesn't that just seem to fit her profession? I thought so. Then it was time to talk epidural. The nurse and midwife were both saying I could get it whenever I wanted (and thought I should get it soon), but I said that I wanted to wait as long as possible. They said that they would see how much I was dilated and then I could decide after that. By this time (4:30ish), I was dilated to a 7 and I thought that was good enough, so the anesthesiologist came and gave me my epidural (5ish) and I was in heaven. My nurse told me to take a nap for an hour and then they would come back and I would start pushing because she was pretty sure I would be ready by then.

At 6pm the nurse came to check me and said I was dilated to a 10, so she went to get the midwife. The midwife checked me again and said it was time, so they got everything all set up. Around 6:25pm I started pushing. I pushed 3 times and he was born at 6:31pm. This whole experience was night and day compared to Weston. Quick, easy, and drama-free. I loved my labor and delivery nurse, Liberty, and my midwife was great too! I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I felt great and we felt so blessed to have a healthy little boy with us in the room until we left the next day.

Afterwards, we got set up in my new room, Charity brought us dinner, and Jason brought Weston to meet his new brother. Weston was more interested in the room than his brother and was more than happy to leave with Jason afterwards. He just waved goodbye to us and left. He loves staying with Jason and Ashley and being able to play with Paisley all day long and we love that he loves it there :) I felt like I could have left that night, but I was definately ready by the next morning. Unfortunately, they didn't want us leaving until Benson had been there a full 24 hours. Casey was a little antsy and bored out of his mind all day, but it helped that our friends, the Nartkers, came to bring us lunch, that we had ESPN, and that we had wireless. We just watched basketball all day long, watched the baby episode of The Office, and checked our email. Our nurse was very prompt about getting us out at 6:31, which was nice. From the hospital we went to go pick up Weston, had dinner at Jason and Ashley's, then it was home to enjoy being a family of four and we couldn't be happier :)