NOAH IS HERE!

My precious little angel is asleep right now so Im attempting to write this quickly before he wakes up. We will see how far I get, promise to post more later.

Here's how the story goes:

I had a baby shower on Sunday Sept. 20th. It was given by my awesome youth group girls and the two other youth group leaders that are preggors had the shower with me. After the shower we went to youth group and I told everyone bye and I would see them Tuesday at the hospital.

When leaving that night I kept thinking, wow I'm done...that was the last thing I had scheduled before Im scheduled for my induction on Tuesday. I had a mental list of everything I needed to run around and do Monday to feel "really" ready for Noah, but wondered if I would make it. That night I joked with Brandon about how I felt like I might go into labor on Monday while running around because my body and Noah just knew we were done and ready for him to come. Well, I guess I was right!

At 3:30am on Monday morning I woke up with the worst cramp ever! I had not had any contractions before this so I wasn't sure what it was. I got up thinking I just had to pee or I was just uncomfortable. Sure enough about 12 minutes later the pain came back. I got on facebook and started looking around trying to distract myself. HAHA! Once another contraction came 11 min later I realized it was the real deal! I WAS IN LABOR!

I couldn't remember if I was supposed to call the dr or not and wasn't sure if I should wake up Brandon yet. I remembered one of my friends, Amanda Cantrell had written on her blog about her labor story, so I got online and read it to see when she woke up Luke. HAHA!

I woke up Brandon at 4:30 and let him know we wouldn't make it to Tuesday's induction. I let him know they were still far apart so he could go back to sleep. He of course was a little to excited to sleep so he popped up and we started packing.

After packing we took some pictures of his room and waited on the contractions to get closer. At around 7am my contractions were 7 minutes apart and I decided what was another 2 minutes? We were going! We got to the hospital around 7:30 after stopping by chick-fil-a for breakfast for Brandon and Sprite for me. Carrie, our nurse, checked me into a room since the next day was our induction day and she thought it wouldn't be nice to send me home to contract more to be induced 24 hours later!

Dr. Aycock saw me at 9:30 and I had gone from 3 to 4 centimeters in an hour so he decided to keep. PRAISE GOD! He broke my water and then things got fun! The next 20 minutes made me VERY glad for modern medicine and CRNA's. My epidural was amazing! I didn't feel it all and in 5 minutes I was completely pain free! From then on the rest of the day was a breeze! I was contracting like a super star and didn't feel a thing! I was laughing and talking as friends and family showed up to meet Noah.

Around 1:45 they noticed a dip in Noah's heart rate and decided to flip me on my head, put some oxygen on me, and placed an internal monitor on me. When she checked me she noticed I had gone from 7 to 9 centimeters in like 30 minutes! Carrie said he was probably a little stressed about that. Then she said something really scary...READY TO PUSH!?

At 2:12 we began pushing (never felt a thing, like I had to ask them if I was even pushing!) and at 2:42pm on Sept 21st Noah Thomas Brown was born!

After some time by ourselves as a new family, Brandon invited the grandparents and uncle dave in to meet the newest edition. He was WIDE EYED from the moment he came out. I was in love instantly. I couldn't believe I just had a baby!!!

That is our story to how our little miracle came to us. Here are some pictures from the day, more to come:

Ready or not!

I know it has been forever since we posted anything. Our computer had a little bug so we couldn't use it. But Brandon is backing up all the pictures tonight so hopefully tomorrow I will be able to upload some new picts of the house and the progress Noah and I are making. We are growing bigger everyday!

Here's a quick update on things in our life:

We are 36 weeks, 37 on Sunday. At our last 3 visits we have found out that our little man might be ready to come before we were ready for him. At our 34 week visit I was measuring 35 weeks and was already 1cm and 50%. Dr. Riseling was excited and told us nothing to worry about, she just thought it meant we wouldn't make it all 40 weeks (FINE BY ME!) She also said that we might have our due date off a little bit. Since we were blessed with Noah without really trying we were unsure of our due date. We originally thought it was Sept. 24th but after our ultrasound at 19 weeks they changed our due date to Oct. 4th. Now, Dr. Riseling is thinking we are somewhere in between there, so whenever Mr. Noah is ready she is ready!

Well of course Brandon and I left our 34 week visit VERY excited! (and nervous). We still had SOOOO much to do with the house and Noah's room!!! Thanks be to God for our wonderful families. All of our parents immediately chipped in and started helping around the house to get everything done. Before we knew it the house was painted, Noah's things were starting to come out of storage, and new carpet was in our bedroom. It was amazing!

This past Thursday we went to our 36 week visit. The night before I had told Brandon I was done! HAHA. I said if she told me I could go that day then I was going! Before we went in, we both made our guesses about what she would say. At the 35 week visit we jumped to 2 cm and 70% so who knew what she would say this time! I guessed that nothing happened and he was going to stall out on us after all the early excitement. Brandon said he was scared to guess since every time we get surprised. HAHA!

BOY OH BOY were we surprised. We were 3cm and 80%. She also told us that he very low and she couldn't believe I wasn't having contractions yet. She told me I would probably be go into labor in a week. Next she asked a question that confused us both. "How do you feel about induction?" Induction? But you just said you would be surprised if I lasted another week. Why would I go over my due date? That is when she told us how we might be farther along than we thought and since he is trying to make his way in the world but my body isn't cooperating I might need a little help.

Next thing we knew, we are at the check out counter scheduling our induction for Sept. 22nd. So we just cut off like 2 weeks of our getting ready time! I was freaking out, but my amazing husband was calm as always. He was so reassuring that we would get everything done and at the end of the day all that mattered was our little boy was coming home.

We are working all weekend to finish things up. Pending that I don't go into labor tonight, I should be able to post some pictures tomorrow of the progress we are making. If not, then our bags are packed and we are ready to go! (Hope it doesn't hurt too bad!!!!)

~Amanda