It paid off. The year he shot a doe and two bucks! Both of which he mounted. Well done babe!
Showing posts with label husband. Show all posts
Showing posts with label husband. Show all posts
Monday, November 14, 2016
A Buck, or Two
Hunting season is here! and the hubby is getting out into the woods as often as he can. I was able to go hunting on the season opener (here), but with a new baby and a busy toddler it was just too hard to try and go again. The hubs, however, took every chance he got to go hunting.
It paid off. The year he shot a doe and two bucks! Both of which he mounted. Well done babe!
It paid off. The year he shot a doe and two bucks! Both of which he mounted. Well done babe!
Monday, October 3, 2016
Hunting Season Opener
It's here! Hunting season is finally here. For bow opening weekend, we planned to be down at camp so that I could get at least one hunt in this year. Grandma and Grandpa Bishop came as well to watch the boys and spend some time with us. The weather was amazing, but a little too warm. The hubs and I were able to go out and hunt Saturday morning, Saturday night and Sunday morning. Saturday morning we saw three does about 15 minutes before shooting light and then we didn't see or hear a thing after that. That sucked, but it was totally worth it to be outside, in the woods, up in a stand, with my bow ready. I love being out in the woods.
Friday, July 22, 2016
Birth Photography
When I got pregnant with Dayton, one of the things that intrigued me was birth photography. As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to have those special moments captured by a camera. Well, little Mr. D didn't cooperate with me and ended coming 3 weeks early as an emergency c-section. Oh well. That's life.
When we got pregnant again, by the grace of God, I was even more resolved to have a natural labor and birth with birth photography. Our family friend, Beth Hektoen is a labor and delivery nurse who also is a photographer on the side. I contacted her immediately. She was so excited to be able to photograph our labor and delivery and I just knew it would work out even though she had events on either side of our due date.
I kept Beth up to date on my progress surrounding my due date on July 16th. She reminded me that she would be leaving on Thursday, July 21st to photograph her cousins wedding. I was praying that baby C would come in time. When I went into labor on Monday afternoon, I text Beth to let her know. She was on call at her own hospital that night, but was finally able to find someone to cover for her while she came to photograph Colton's birth. Yes!!
Beth was amazing. She came over right away, came in unannounced, and just did her thing. For the most part, I didn't even know she was there. Being a labor and delivery nurse obviously gave her an advantage. Beth introduced herself to my midwife, Amber, and Amber encouraged her to make herself comfortable saying, "We're all about the photography here." What a relief.
Beth did an amazing job and even caught a short video of Colton's first moments in the world. I still tear up looking at these photos and watching the video. It was the most beautiful and special moment for us and we got it all caught on camera, thanks to Beth (and it was so reasonably priced!!). She is amazing!! This was by far the best decision I made about photography.
Here is her website - Beth A. Hektoen Photography
Below are some of my favorites:
When we got pregnant again, by the grace of God, I was even more resolved to have a natural labor and birth with birth photography. Our family friend, Beth Hektoen is a labor and delivery nurse who also is a photographer on the side. I contacted her immediately. She was so excited to be able to photograph our labor and delivery and I just knew it would work out even though she had events on either side of our due date.
I kept Beth up to date on my progress surrounding my due date on July 16th. She reminded me that she would be leaving on Thursday, July 21st to photograph her cousins wedding. I was praying that baby C would come in time. When I went into labor on Monday afternoon, I text Beth to let her know. She was on call at her own hospital that night, but was finally able to find someone to cover for her while she came to photograph Colton's birth. Yes!!
Beth was amazing. She came over right away, came in unannounced, and just did her thing. For the most part, I didn't even know she was there. Being a labor and delivery nurse obviously gave her an advantage. Beth introduced herself to my midwife, Amber, and Amber encouraged her to make herself comfortable saying, "We're all about the photography here." What a relief.
Beth did an amazing job and even caught a short video of Colton's first moments in the world. I still tear up looking at these photos and watching the video. It was the most beautiful and special moment for us and we got it all caught on camera, thanks to Beth (and it was so reasonably priced!!). She is amazing!! This was by far the best decision I made about photography.
Here is her website - Beth A. Hektoen Photography
Below are some of my favorites:
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Colton's Birth Story
My sweet Colton. This kid has quite the story. At least we like to think so. From beginning to end, this babe was nothing less then a gift straight from God. And I mean that in every way possible.
It only took me five weeks, but I don't want to forget any detail of Colton's birth. So here it is.
On a Tuesday, I had my 39 wee appointment. I was content being pregnant and wasn't in any rush to go into labor. I enjoy being pregnant. Really. My midwife checked me and told me that I was still only 1.5 centimeters dilated and that my cervix was still pretty thick. She estimated I had about a week left. I was totally okay with that. Tuesday night I was cramping so bad. It was awful. I knew it wasn't contractions, which made it even more awful. Wednesday morning I had a break down. I called the midwives office and asked to talk to my main midwife Kim. I wanted my membranes stripped and I wanted this baby out. The nurse I talked to told me that stripping my membranes probably wouldn't help and that they wouldn't induce me because I was planning on a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Ugh. Kim ended up calling me as well and talked me off the "ledge." I knew I liked her. She assured me that my body knew what it was doing and baby would come in time.
Saturday, July 16th was my due date. I was still working out, felt fine, and was still content being pregnant. I was enjoying what I knew would be my last days with this pregnancy. Our day was pretty normal. We went to the gym, I cleaned the house, did some yard work, and then we got ready for church. While we were in church, I started having some pretty "fiery" back pains. I ended up walking out of the service because I was so uncomfortable (it was almost over). Once I used the restroom and walked around, the pains went away. I picked up Dayton from the daycare and we headed home. We kept our normal Saturday night routine - give Dayton a snack, put him to bed, finish cooking our dinner, and downstairs to watch our show on Netflix. Well, as I started eating, I started getting these horrible pains in my stomach. I don't know what they were. I don't think they were contractions, but they were worse than cramps. Ugh. After about an hour, they went away. Man that was a bad hour.
Sunday I was totally fine. It was like no pains had even happened. Monday morning (July 18th), Dayton and I started out our day the way we always do. We ate breakfast and then headed to the gym. I did my normal workout with my normal intensity. More than two people stopped me and asked when my baby was due. I let them know that he was due last Saturday, which surprised all but one person who had seen me workout each day that summer. After I was done working out, I got on the stair stepper and did my 15 minutes. Near the end of my time, I noticed that my stomach hardened and stayed that way for over 30 seconds. It was weird. People always told me I would know when it was a contraction and I did. I knew it was a contraction right then and there. I didn't give it too much thought and finished up. Dayton and I went to Wal-Mart where I happened to notice I kept getting these contractions. I started looking at my phone. They were about ten minutes apart.
We ran a few more errands and then went home for lunch. After lunch, I put Dayton down for nap and then cooked the last freezer meal I had groceries for. My contractions were about eight minutes apart at this point, so I text Brad to let him know I was having them. I felt fine though. I was walking, talking and I wasn't in any pain. I assumed they would just go away. This was not what I had pictured at all. I cleaned the house with the "just in case" thought and then decided to sit down and drink some water to see if they would go away. They were between six and seven minutes apart at this point and were lasting about a minute. Well, they didn't go away. I text Brad again to let him know. He asked if he needed to come home and I assured him that everything was fine. I wasn't in pain at all. He said he wanted to mow after dinner and asked if we could eat a little earlier. I said that was fine and continued on with my afternoon.
When he text me again at 3:30 pm to let me know he was on his way home I told him that he better mow before dinner to be safe because it was starting to hurt a bit. I was still walking and talking through them, but it definitely didn't feel comfortable anymore. Brad got home at 4 pm and I was sitting at the table while Dayton was eating his snack. My contractions were five to six minutes apart and I was breathing through them. I could still walk but I was stopping to breath. Brad ran outside to mow and I called the midwives at 4:25 pm (right before they closed) to talk to a nurse. The nurse told me that Amber was on call and this sounded like the real thing, so to call back around 5 pm. Well, I figured if this was the real thing I didn't want to rush to the hospital. I had planned to labor at home for as long as possible. Mostly because I wanted to be more comfortable and I knew that they would want me hooked up and monitored since I was a VBAC. I wanted to be safe, but I also didn't want to be stuck hooked up my whole labor.
I took a shower, dried and straightened my hair, and finished packing my bag. I called Amber at 6 pm. My contractions were four minutes apart and I was having to stop and breath through them. They were starting to hurt. After I told Amber what was going on she said, "Yeah, you need to come in right now. How long will it take you to get here?" I told her we were 20 minutes away and that we would start heading that way. After I got off the phone with her, I called our neighbor and good friend, Alicia, to ask her if she could come get Dayton. She said of course (as this was the plan) and she was over in about 5 minutes. Brad and I finished packing up, said goodbye to Dayton, and headed out the door.
I think Brad got nervous because he was going pretty fast down a 35 mph road towards the highway. I told him to slow down and that it was fine, that we had plenty of time. He looked at me and said, "You are not having this baby in the car." I assured him again that we had plenty of time. He obliged and slowed down...a bit. We got on the highway when he turned to me and said, "Shoot. I didn't eat dinner. I'm going to get hangry." I was not about to have him be hangry during my labor so I told him to stop at Chick-fil-a and get some dinner before we got to the hospital. As we were pulling up, I decided I was hungry too and wanted to eat before we got there (knowing that they wouldn't let me eat once I stepped foot into the hospital). My contractions were three minutes apart. We ordered two meals and ate them in the car as we finished the drive to the hospital.
We got up to labor and delivery at 7 pm and a nurse took one look at me and said, "Are you Kristen?" to which I replied "yes." She looked at me a little wide eyed and said, "We were wondering where you were." (I had told Amber we were 20 minutes away. It took us an hour to get there-oops). She brought us to the triage room where I changed into a gown. Amber came in and checked me. I was at 5 centimeters. Woohoo! So they checked me in and brought us to our room. My nurse started filling out the "paperwork" on the computer as I got into the bed. Just like I said, she hooked me right up to the monitors so that they could continuously monitor baby's heartbeat. I had been laying in the bed for 10 minutes when I heard and felt a "pop!" My water broke and it gushed out. I looked at the nurse and said, "I think my water just broke." She looked under my sheet and said, "Yep. It sure did!"
Side notes: 1) I was determined to have a natural delivery. I wanted absolutely no pain medications or unnecessary medical interventions. I was incredibly determined to have this baby the all-natural way. This was a main reason we switched from the Covenant doctors to the midwives. 2) We had hired a family friend, Beth Hektoen, for birth photography (You can find her website here). Looking back, it was the best decision I made and it was completely worth it. Seriously. I had really wanted this with Dayton, but because of my emergency c-section, we didn't get that experience. Now back to my story...
The nurse called Amber who came in to discuss pain relief options and my birth plan around 7:30 pm. There were actually four pain options, but I let hr and Brad know that I didn't want any of them (if I could make it through labor without them). I told Amber that I didn't want an IV hooked up, that I didn't love being hooked up to the monitors and would prefer the wireless ones, that I wanted to use the birthing ball, and the tub during the transition stage. She was totally fine with all of that. She did say she would like me to have the IV needle in, in case there was an emergency. I agreed, but in hind sight will pass that up as well if there is a next time. It was annoying when I was trying to move around, it hurt, and it ended up leaving a bruise on my hand. No thanks.
After Amber left, I got on the birthing ball. My water breaking caused my contractions to come strong and fast. I started getting pretty hot and ended up taking off the gown so that I could concentrate on relaxing through the contractions. Brad sat behind me to rub my back since that was hurting, but that got irritating, so I asked him to just hold my hand through them instead. After a while on the ball, I was starting to get very uncomfortable, so I decided to try laying on the bed on my side in the Bradley method relaxing position. It helped a little, but I asked my nurse that I thought I may want to use the tub soon. Amber came back in to check on me and asked if I wanted her to check me. I said yes mostly because I needed to know I was making progress. At 8:35 pm, I was at 7 centimeters. Amber said now would be a good time to use the tub. My nurse started getting it ready. I looked at Amber and said, "So now is the hard part?" She smiled and said, "Now is the fast part." In my head I was mentally preparing for the pain I was about to be in. It was getting very intense, but I was determined to get through it. Brad was right beside me and held my hand as I squeezed his through the worst part of my contractions as I tried to relax the rest of my body.
The contractions were two to three minutes apart, but they were lasting almost two minutes. I could feel it coming on and the pain would get bad but then it felt like it wouldn't go away and that I was only getting a 30 second break before it would all start over again. At some point in there, I didn't know if I was going to make it. The pain was very intense, but I kept my mouth shut and just squeezed my poor husbands hand. At one point I looked at him and said, "I need you to pray." He replied, "I have been. This whole time." I said, "No, I mean out loud. I need you to pray out loud." I don't remember everything he said, but I remember him thanking God for our little miracle baby and I knew I could get through this.
At about 8:50 pm, I started to feel a lot of pressure and I told my nurse. I had been feeling some pretty good pressure, but it changed to where I wanted to push. After I had told my nurse, she called Amber. Amber stopped in and told me to push through the contractions if that's what I wanted to do. I did and I felt a little relief. It was kind of strange, but it was like I knew or could picture exactly what was going on in my body as I pushed through my contractions. I knew baby was moving down through the birth canal and I knew I was getting close. As everyone was getting things ready, I felt the strong urge to push and I could not stop it. I was pushing and I couldn't and didn't want to stop it.
I let Amber know and I rolled over onto my back. She checked me, pulled out the foot rests and told Brad, "There's his head!" Once I was on m back, my body took over and I knew exactly what I was doing. I am so glad I didn't have an epidural. I knew when to push, how long to push and when to rest. It was an amazing experience. I would even say, beautiful and empowering. I started pushing around 9 pm. After about 10 minutes of pushing, the nurse told Amber that the baby's heart rate had dropped down to 85 bpm. Amber said she was okay with that, but they continued to monitor it. After another push, they ended up putting an oxygen mask on me so that my baby would get some oxygen.
I pushed for about 10 more minutes. Every time I pushed, I felt baby coming and I knew I was getting close to meeting my sweet boy. I heard Amer tell me to pull my legs back towards myself, but I was concentrating so hard on pushing and I was shaking pretty bad that I couldn't quite muster up the strength to pull up my legs. I had a good grip on the bed railing and my other hand was holding on to Brad. I am so glad that he stayed by my side and held my hand. It completely grounded me and helped me focus on what I was doing. After I pushed one more time, two nurses grabbed my legs and pulled my legs back towards my body. Brad told me later that they both commented on how strong I was because they had to use their body weight to pull my legs back. I was pushing!
After my legs were pushed back, I pushed one more time and little man was out at 9:27 pm. He came out fast. Here is Colton's first picture in the outside world! Arms up and everything. That's our boy.
That. That right there is the most beautiful moment in this whole story. I can't even describe what I was feeling then. I felt a barrage of emotions and they were all wonderful. It was a completely amazing experience and I already want to do it again. I birthed a baby, naturally. As I told my friends the next day. I felt like a bad ass.
Baby Colton let out a cry right away so they handed him to Brad and the hubs put him right on my chest. Colton pooped and peed all over me right away, which was good. The nurses wiped him down a bit while Amber pushed all of the cord fluid towards Colton. One of the things we asked for was delayed cord clamping and cutting. We waited until the cord stopped pulsating so that baby could get all of the blood from the cord. Studies show that this can increase babies development in later years. Brad was able to cut the cord and then Colton was placed right on my chest. He settled down immediately and was so content to just lay on mommy. I was still breathing heavy from pushing and crying because I was so happy he was out. I think Brad was trying to figure out what I was feeling.
After he was out and laying on my chest, we just enjoyed our baby. He was so sweet and content. It was a beautiful moment between all three of us. Brad's face was so sweet and I'm so glad we caught it on camera. These are some of the most beautiful photos we have. Like I said, I am so glad that we hired Beth to take our birth photos. I tear up every time I see them.
Happy Birthday Colton. Mommy and Daddy love you more then we can explain. Your birth could not have gone any better and we are so so thankful that God gave us you. You are our little miracle.
It only took me five weeks, but I don't want to forget any detail of Colton's birth. So here it is.
On a Tuesday, I had my 39 wee appointment. I was content being pregnant and wasn't in any rush to go into labor. I enjoy being pregnant. Really. My midwife checked me and told me that I was still only 1.5 centimeters dilated and that my cervix was still pretty thick. She estimated I had about a week left. I was totally okay with that. Tuesday night I was cramping so bad. It was awful. I knew it wasn't contractions, which made it even more awful. Wednesday morning I had a break down. I called the midwives office and asked to talk to my main midwife Kim. I wanted my membranes stripped and I wanted this baby out. The nurse I talked to told me that stripping my membranes probably wouldn't help and that they wouldn't induce me because I was planning on a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Ugh. Kim ended up calling me as well and talked me off the "ledge." I knew I liked her. She assured me that my body knew what it was doing and baby would come in time.
Saturday, July 16th was my due date. I was still working out, felt fine, and was still content being pregnant. I was enjoying what I knew would be my last days with this pregnancy. Our day was pretty normal. We went to the gym, I cleaned the house, did some yard work, and then we got ready for church. While we were in church, I started having some pretty "fiery" back pains. I ended up walking out of the service because I was so uncomfortable (it was almost over). Once I used the restroom and walked around, the pains went away. I picked up Dayton from the daycare and we headed home. We kept our normal Saturday night routine - give Dayton a snack, put him to bed, finish cooking our dinner, and downstairs to watch our show on Netflix. Well, as I started eating, I started getting these horrible pains in my stomach. I don't know what they were. I don't think they were contractions, but they were worse than cramps. Ugh. After about an hour, they went away. Man that was a bad hour.
Sunday I was totally fine. It was like no pains had even happened. Monday morning (July 18th), Dayton and I started out our day the way we always do. We ate breakfast and then headed to the gym. I did my normal workout with my normal intensity. More than two people stopped me and asked when my baby was due. I let them know that he was due last Saturday, which surprised all but one person who had seen me workout each day that summer. After I was done working out, I got on the stair stepper and did my 15 minutes. Near the end of my time, I noticed that my stomach hardened and stayed that way for over 30 seconds. It was weird. People always told me I would know when it was a contraction and I did. I knew it was a contraction right then and there. I didn't give it too much thought and finished up. Dayton and I went to Wal-Mart where I happened to notice I kept getting these contractions. I started looking at my phone. They were about ten minutes apart.
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| reading before lunch |
When he text me again at 3:30 pm to let me know he was on his way home I told him that he better mow before dinner to be safe because it was starting to hurt a bit. I was still walking and talking through them, but it definitely didn't feel comfortable anymore. Brad got home at 4 pm and I was sitting at the table while Dayton was eating his snack. My contractions were five to six minutes apart and I was breathing through them. I could still walk but I was stopping to breath. Brad ran outside to mow and I called the midwives at 4:25 pm (right before they closed) to talk to a nurse. The nurse told me that Amber was on call and this sounded like the real thing, so to call back around 5 pm. Well, I figured if this was the real thing I didn't want to rush to the hospital. I had planned to labor at home for as long as possible. Mostly because I wanted to be more comfortable and I knew that they would want me hooked up and monitored since I was a VBAC. I wanted to be safe, but I also didn't want to be stuck hooked up my whole labor.
I took a shower, dried and straightened my hair, and finished packing my bag. I called Amber at 6 pm. My contractions were four minutes apart and I was having to stop and breath through them. They were starting to hurt. After I told Amber what was going on she said, "Yeah, you need to come in right now. How long will it take you to get here?" I told her we were 20 minutes away and that we would start heading that way. After I got off the phone with her, I called our neighbor and good friend, Alicia, to ask her if she could come get Dayton. She said of course (as this was the plan) and she was over in about 5 minutes. Brad and I finished packing up, said goodbye to Dayton, and headed out the door.
I think Brad got nervous because he was going pretty fast down a 35 mph road towards the highway. I told him to slow down and that it was fine, that we had plenty of time. He looked at me and said, "You are not having this baby in the car." I assured him again that we had plenty of time. He obliged and slowed down...a bit. We got on the highway when he turned to me and said, "Shoot. I didn't eat dinner. I'm going to get hangry." I was not about to have him be hangry during my labor so I told him to stop at Chick-fil-a and get some dinner before we got to the hospital. As we were pulling up, I decided I was hungry too and wanted to eat before we got there (knowing that they wouldn't let me eat once I stepped foot into the hospital). My contractions were three minutes apart. We ordered two meals and ate them in the car as we finished the drive to the hospital.
We got up to labor and delivery at 7 pm and a nurse took one look at me and said, "Are you Kristen?" to which I replied "yes." She looked at me a little wide eyed and said, "We were wondering where you were." (I had told Amber we were 20 minutes away. It took us an hour to get there-oops). She brought us to the triage room where I changed into a gown. Amber came in and checked me. I was at 5 centimeters. Woohoo! So they checked me in and brought us to our room. My nurse started filling out the "paperwork" on the computer as I got into the bed. Just like I said, she hooked me right up to the monitors so that they could continuously monitor baby's heartbeat. I had been laying in the bed for 10 minutes when I heard and felt a "pop!" My water broke and it gushed out. I looked at the nurse and said, "I think my water just broke." She looked under my sheet and said, "Yep. It sure did!"
Side notes: 1) I was determined to have a natural delivery. I wanted absolutely no pain medications or unnecessary medical interventions. I was incredibly determined to have this baby the all-natural way. This was a main reason we switched from the Covenant doctors to the midwives. 2) We had hired a family friend, Beth Hektoen, for birth photography (You can find her website here). Looking back, it was the best decision I made and it was completely worth it. Seriously. I had really wanted this with Dayton, but because of my emergency c-section, we didn't get that experience. Now back to my story...
The nurse called Amber who came in to discuss pain relief options and my birth plan around 7:30 pm. There were actually four pain options, but I let hr and Brad know that I didn't want any of them (if I could make it through labor without them). I told Amber that I didn't want an IV hooked up, that I didn't love being hooked up to the monitors and would prefer the wireless ones, that I wanted to use the birthing ball, and the tub during the transition stage. She was totally fine with all of that. She did say she would like me to have the IV needle in, in case there was an emergency. I agreed, but in hind sight will pass that up as well if there is a next time. It was annoying when I was trying to move around, it hurt, and it ended up leaving a bruise on my hand. No thanks.
After Amber left, I got on the birthing ball. My water breaking caused my contractions to come strong and fast. I started getting pretty hot and ended up taking off the gown so that I could concentrate on relaxing through the contractions. Brad sat behind me to rub my back since that was hurting, but that got irritating, so I asked him to just hold my hand through them instead. After a while on the ball, I was starting to get very uncomfortable, so I decided to try laying on the bed on my side in the Bradley method relaxing position. It helped a little, but I asked my nurse that I thought I may want to use the tub soon. Amber came back in to check on me and asked if I wanted her to check me. I said yes mostly because I needed to know I was making progress. At 8:35 pm, I was at 7 centimeters. Amber said now would be a good time to use the tub. My nurse started getting it ready. I looked at Amber and said, "So now is the hard part?" She smiled and said, "Now is the fast part." In my head I was mentally preparing for the pain I was about to be in. It was getting very intense, but I was determined to get through it. Brad was right beside me and held my hand as I squeezed his through the worst part of my contractions as I tried to relax the rest of my body.
The contractions were two to three minutes apart, but they were lasting almost two minutes. I could feel it coming on and the pain would get bad but then it felt like it wouldn't go away and that I was only getting a 30 second break before it would all start over again. At some point in there, I didn't know if I was going to make it. The pain was very intense, but I kept my mouth shut and just squeezed my poor husbands hand. At one point I looked at him and said, "I need you to pray." He replied, "I have been. This whole time." I said, "No, I mean out loud. I need you to pray out loud." I don't remember everything he said, but I remember him thanking God for our little miracle baby and I knew I could get through this.
At about 8:50 pm, I started to feel a lot of pressure and I told my nurse. I had been feeling some pretty good pressure, but it changed to where I wanted to push. After I had told my nurse, she called Amber. Amber stopped in and told me to push through the contractions if that's what I wanted to do. I did and I felt a little relief. It was kind of strange, but it was like I knew or could picture exactly what was going on in my body as I pushed through my contractions. I knew baby was moving down through the birth canal and I knew I was getting close. As everyone was getting things ready, I felt the strong urge to push and I could not stop it. I was pushing and I couldn't and didn't want to stop it.
I let Amber know and I rolled over onto my back. She checked me, pulled out the foot rests and told Brad, "There's his head!" Once I was on m back, my body took over and I knew exactly what I was doing. I am so glad I didn't have an epidural. I knew when to push, how long to push and when to rest. It was an amazing experience. I would even say, beautiful and empowering. I started pushing around 9 pm. After about 10 minutes of pushing, the nurse told Amber that the baby's heart rate had dropped down to 85 bpm. Amber said she was okay with that, but they continued to monitor it. After another push, they ended up putting an oxygen mask on me so that my baby would get some oxygen.
I pushed for about 10 more minutes. Every time I pushed, I felt baby coming and I knew I was getting close to meeting my sweet boy. I heard Amer tell me to pull my legs back towards myself, but I was concentrating so hard on pushing and I was shaking pretty bad that I couldn't quite muster up the strength to pull up my legs. I had a good grip on the bed railing and my other hand was holding on to Brad. I am so glad that he stayed by my side and held my hand. It completely grounded me and helped me focus on what I was doing. After I pushed one more time, two nurses grabbed my legs and pulled my legs back towards my body. Brad told me later that they both commented on how strong I was because they had to use their body weight to pull my legs back. I was pushing!
After my legs were pushed back, I pushed one more time and little man was out at 9:27 pm. He came out fast. Here is Colton's first picture in the outside world! Arms up and everything. That's our boy.
That. That right there is the most beautiful moment in this whole story. I can't even describe what I was feeling then. I felt a barrage of emotions and they were all wonderful. It was a completely amazing experience and I already want to do it again. I birthed a baby, naturally. As I told my friends the next day. I felt like a bad ass.
Baby Colton let out a cry right away so they handed him to Brad and the hubs put him right on my chest. Colton pooped and peed all over me right away, which was good. The nurses wiped him down a bit while Amber pushed all of the cord fluid towards Colton. One of the things we asked for was delayed cord clamping and cutting. We waited until the cord stopped pulsating so that baby could get all of the blood from the cord. Studies show that this can increase babies development in later years. Brad was able to cut the cord and then Colton was placed right on my chest. He settled down immediately and was so content to just lay on mommy. I was still breathing heavy from pushing and crying because I was so happy he was out. I think Brad was trying to figure out what I was feeling.
After he was out and laying on my chest, we just enjoyed our baby. He was so sweet and content. It was a beautiful moment between all three of us. Brad's face was so sweet and I'm so glad we caught it on camera. These are some of the most beautiful photos we have. Like I said, I am so glad that we hired Beth to take our birth photos. I tear up every time I see them.
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| talking to my mom on the phone to tell her the good news |
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| Brad talking to his parents. |
Happy Birthday Colton. Mommy and Daddy love you more then we can explain. Your birth could not have gone any better and we are so so thankful that God gave us you. You are our little miracle.
"For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him."
1 Samuel 1:27