I was understandably busy while we were in the hospital so John took most of the pictures those first few days. I'll try to upload them here. Here's one from when he was two days old. His hair looks so short!
Sam surprised us by arriving about 2 1/2 weeks early. I had been feeling tired the weekend before I went into labor but assumed it was just third trimester stuff. On Tuesday 4/10 I woke up at 5:30am with what felt like moderate cramps and was unable to go back to sleep. I got up and did my normal routine- breakfast, work, walk, lunch- and by the afternoon the cramps were severe enough that I called my friend, Ali, to see if what I was having sounded like Braxton-Hicks contractions. I wasn't able to reach her so I called my mom. During our conversation she heard me catch my breathe a couple of times and said, "honey, I think your in labor!" The pain really wasn't that bad and I didn't want to go to the hospital only to be sent home. It happened that a friend of ours, Chip, was in from Texas and staying with us that night so I went home to wait for him to arrive. We had all planned to go out to dinner but when it came time to go I was hurting enough that I knew I would be really uncomfortable at a restaurant so I told them to go without me. They returned at about 10:30 pm and we hung out talking until about midnight. I was kind of watching the clock suspecting I might be having real contractions by then however they we still very inconsistent. Chip also told me that his wife, who had two children, experienced contractions her whole third trimester.
At 12:45am I woke up when my water broke. John's response to me waking him up was, "Are you sure? I just fell asleep." My nurse had told me that even after my water broke I would have a while before I needed to head to the hospital and to stay home until they contractions were so painful that I couldn't talk through them. I told John to stay in bed and got in the shower. After a few minutes the contractions were really painful and close together so I told John to get ready. We had to wake Chip up to grab and outfit for Sam since I had not yet packed a hospital bag. We arrived at the hospital at about 2:00am. John let me off at the front and went to park the car. Unfortunately I forgot that you have to go to a back set of elevators to get to the labor and delivery ward and rode all the way up to the third floor before remembering. It felt like forever waiting for the elevator to come back and I was convinced I was going to deliver in the hallway. As it turns out, I had plenty of time. The doctor finally told me I could start pushing at 7:00am and Sam was born at 9:00am on the dot. I have never in my life been more happy or more tired!
