i wish i had one of those heroic birth stories to tell you, one where i had crazy painful contractions or my water broke and we only just made it to the hospital in the knick of time and there was no time for an epidural …. but then again maybe i don’t. in truth my birth story was very calm which never included any pain or panic.

saturday morning, thirty-eight weeks into my pregnacny, the fourteenth of june, they decided it was time for baby jude to be born because of the increasing concern he wasn’t growing properly due to the partial placenta abruption i had at twenty-nine weeks. on an ultrasound a few days earlier, he was measuring under the tenth percentile. so saturday morning, at ten o’clock, we walked calmly into the labor and delivery ward at our hospital ready to have a baby. around ten-thirty they started the induction process with a drug called pitocin and my water was scheduled to be broken at twelve o’clock p.m. my doctor was very adamant that she wanted me to have the epidural before she was to break my water so i never was in any real pain before she did. when she broke my water i was eighty percent effaced and three-plus centimeters dilated. at four o’clock in the afternoon, when checked again, i had only dilated to a four and was one hundred percent effaced and had not yet been in any pain. at this point camden and i started to feel slightly discouraged because we had hoped and expected to see much more progress by this point. they said they would check again in a few hours so i just laid there calmly, expecting we would be here waiting for quite a bit longer, maybe late into the night or quite possibly even into the next day. i was so unaware of progress happening that when my doctor came in around seven in the evening i had been on pinterest trying to keep myself entertained. when she checked she looked at me and said “alright, you are nine-plus centimeters dilated, it’s time to push!”. i honestly thought she was joking and just stared at her for a minute waiting for her to say “just kidding”. so around seven forty-five we began the pushing process and at two minutes after eight, fifteen painless minutes later he was out and the sweetest little boy we’d every seen was born.

these were taken after his first bath in the hospital which is when we quickly discovered jude hates to be naked or wet and is really the only time he actually cries.

we have been home for a few days now and i’m happy to report things have been going pretty well. we are just spending these day figuring out how to be parents and really trying to appreciate and soak in all the little moments that seem to go by so quickly. so here is to baby jude … we love you so much.