Ezra Jamison Dawson is here!

    I feel like March was a whirlwind that went by so fast. I figured it would, I was busy getting lots of stuff done before little baby Dawson was scheduled to come on 4/4/14. The night before was Chops' school art festival, we went and the kids did little activities and then we stopped by Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt. It was fun to do one last activity before we became a family of five.
The nurses had told me to plan on getting a call from 9-12 the next morning. We went to bed. The call came at 7:30 but they asked me to come in at 9. Grandma Dorothy came over and we headed out.           When we got there the room wasn't quite ready so we hung out in the waiting room for a while.
Our delivery nurse took us in and started asking questions and getting things ready. Dr Watabe came in and broke my water and I was getting excited to get things going. We were having quite the conversation with the nurse, we found out that Chops taught her granddaughter a couple of years ago and we had just undergone the same Mohs procedure for skin cancer with the same dr. I thought that they had already started me on pitocin because I had my IV in, but apparently I didn't get it until around 10:45. With Addie I was in labor for 12 hours, Wyatt was around 6, so I was kind of thinking this one may follow the pattern and come in three but not so much. I really didn't have a long labor, but because I was planning on a quick one it felt pretty slow.
     We kind of bummed around, waiting for contractions to get going. I was debating on when I wanted my epidural. I've heard that they slow things down (which already felt like we were going at a snails pace) so I didn't want to get it too early, but I also didn't want to miss my chance. As contractions started picking up I kept telling myself fifteen more minutes until they were getting moderately painful. I decided to get one and felt like it was just the right timing. After the epidural was placed, which seemed like the most painful one I've gotten, we threw around names for our possible baby girl.
     The clock kept ticking away and around 4 pm the nurse decided to check me. I was pretty close so she called the dr and said, "you're really ready, I bet this baby will be here in no time"Whoo hoo! I kind of wanted to keep with the number 4 theme so I said, let's have the baby come at 4:14 or 4:44. Well, after pushing a lot we missed both of those time frames. I felt like as we were nearing the end the dr was realizing this may not be the smallest baby. They had me shift all the way back on my back to push, then moved me back up and then, baby's head came out. The dr looked over at the nurse and gave her some key word, so she grabbed a stool, as another nurse took my leg and jumped on my belly.  Baby's shoulders had been stuck but that popped him out. Chops was in charge of telling us the gender and he said, "Boy, he's a boy!" He didn't start crying right away and I could tell they were a little nervous but they put him on me and he started to cry.  I feel like with Addie they whisked her away and weighed her and that stuff but with Ezra they just let me snuggle him, which was nice because I was getting stitches. When they did take him and weigh him I figured he had to be pretty big. He reminded me of Addie, smooshed and puffy with a little bit of a cone head.  When they told me 8 lbs 13 oz I was so glad that I decided to get induced early, he would have been a nine pounder for sure if I had waited.  One of my favorite parts of having a baby is how excited Chops gets. He is always a little queasy with the epidural but he is a champ for the pushing. Usually when I'm getting tired and ready to quit his excitement and encouragement gets me going again.
    Because we had him around shift change we kind of felt in limbo for a while, we told our family to wait a bit, but when they did come we were still in L and D and then the new nurse didn't want to kick them out so I stayed up there for hours after having him.
     When Addie found out that he was a boy she asked. "how come he didn't come out a girl?" and when she saw my still squishy tummy she said, "that one will be a girl". Kids.
     We had watched conference the next day and the kids got to order a hospital meal with me. I was feeling ready to go home so once we passed everything off we checked out and were home. I totally forgot to bring a baby blanket so I felt kind of ghetto walking him out with my coat over him.
     He has been an angel baby, great nurser, pretty good at sleeping longer at night and loves naps during the day. Addie and Wyatt have been such great big siblings and they have been best friends to each other which has been such a blessing. It was also fantastic to have Chops home for a week. He just went back today and we survived, but I definitely missed him.