It was the evening of Wednesday, February 6, we were getting ready to put to Solana to bed around 7. I started to feel some heavier contractions. I tried to not get excited because since I was dilated to a 3 for weeks, I had been feeling some contractions already so I didn't think too much of it. But they definitley started to be consistent. I could barely make it through story time with Solana, but I tried to brush it off. Especially because Adam could hardly hold in his excitement and it was actually very distracting to me. He would say every couple of minutes " Are we having a baby tonight?!" or "Are you having another contraction?! How painful is it?!" So I told him to stop asking me and I tried to lie and avoid telling him when I was having another one.
Well Wednesday night is our shows night, so at 9 we got all settled in to watch our shows. My contractions did not seem as bad, so I figured it was a no go on labor, at least for the night. But by the time we were headed off to bed two hours later, I knew it was labor. I could barely stand through each contraction, and they were about every 2 minutes and they lasted anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute long. At midnight, I told Adam to hurry and go to bed and that I would try and do the same, hoping that we could make it until morning before heading to the hospital. But after 30 minutes or so we both decided we wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. He started to get ready for the hospital and I slowly got ready (pausing every couple minutes to lean on something and deep breathe).
We got Solana up in the middle of night, and swaddled her in blankets and sat her on my lap and we drove a couple doors down to our dear friends who offered to watch her. She loves Peter and Ashley and she was excited to go to their house. She was pretty out of it, but I told her I was going to the doctors to have her baby brother and that we would come back and get her when he was here. It was hard for me to leave her, because I knew how much I would miss her. She quickly fell asleep on their sofa and was perfect the entire time!
We arrived at the hospital at 3am which was nice because it was pretty empty, so that made it a fun experience. I opted to ride in the wheelchair and boy I'm glad I did. The security guard drove it like I was race car, and for the short ride over to the maternity wing, I could barely focus on my contractions because of my crazy roller coaster wheelchair ride! The downside to an early morning, empty hospital is that it took forever to get admitted, and Adam and I were both pretty anxious while laboring in a small, hot triage room, wondering if anyone still remembered us.
When I got checked in I was dilated to a 5. I pain seemed bearable, but that didn't last long. By the time they got me to my room and all hooked up to everything I was about ready to hit someone or at least punch a wall. But instead I would kindly ask my nurse, "When do you think I can get some drugs?" I thought if I was nice she would hurry, but really I don't think it mattered. I finally got some relief when I was dilated to a 7. It definitely took the edge off of my contractions and from there on out I was super happy to be there! Barb (my nurse) and I chatted for hours and we became BFFs. Adam was dozing in and out of the conversation for most of it. I figured one of us needed to sleep and I was having too much fun getting to know my nurse. I finally got my epidural a couple hours before baby Boston arrived and that just put me in an even better mood.
I was also so excited to see my favorite doctor (Jenkins) stroll in around 8 am. He was equally excited to be there, and said, "Well we started this whole thing together, so now let's finish it." (He was doctor in the ER when we found out I was prego). It's so fun when things work out exactly how you hope they would, especially when you have no control over any of it, I love that!
The rest of the story is pretty blurry, but I just remember laughing with my nurse, pushing for 20 minutes and then I had a giant baby! We were shocked at how big he was—even the doctors and nurses couldn't believe I was carrying such a giant. He was perfect, and it was an emotional time meeting my son. 15 hours later and it was all worth it. I had an amazing hospital staff, and my stay there for 2 days after was fabulous. It was hard to not have Solana and Adam there all the time, because I missed them so much, but I also loved the time alone that I got to sleep and cuddle with Boston. He is such an easy baby and it has been so much fun to have a little boy in the house.
This is me on drugs and in labor. Happy and content and floating somewhere wonderful. I should have taken a before picture, but I'm sure if Adam tried to take a picture, I would have thrown the camera across the room. Pain brings out the worst in people, grrrrrrr!
This is me after labor and drug free. Happy, happy and more happy with a little bit of tiredness.
One last thing. Many of you might be wondering how we decided on the name Boston. Well it was a struggle! I would rather name a girl any day of the week because boy names seemed so hard!!!
I came across the name Boston in a book shortly after we found out we were having a boy. I ran it by Adam and assumed he would say no because that was a common response to most of my names, but this time I was surprised that he really liked it. Adam is SOOOO picky about names. So I added it to the list and kept searching. What I didn't know is how much Adam would like it, and that he would pester me for months to agree to call him Boston. I liked the name, but didn't love it yet. I had other names I liked more, but Adam had absolutely no interest in them. The search continued and we went to the hospital with several names in mind. But when I saw him, the name Boston popped in my mind (twice actually, because I still tried to ignore it the first time) but as soon as I started calling him Boston it fit so perfectly I couldn't ignore it. And now I can't imagine calling him anything else. I love when it all works out.
