Jared Has Arrived!

Our little man has arrived and it was quite the ordeal to get him here. For those of you are not interested in hearing about the birth (Mark) skip ahead below under the bold headline and you'll miss all the details. =) For those of you that are here it goes:
I woke up on Tuesday (4/21/09) at about 2am with contractions that were pretty strong and about 6-7 minutes apart. Since I couldn't go back to bed I headed to the living room and watched some tv while Jon slept and I waited for the contractions to get closer together and stronger. I called in to work telling them that I wouldn't be in sometime around 8 or so and then after 9 I gave my midwife a call. She encouraged me to continue laboring at home and call her later to check in. Jon and I sat around for most of the day waiting for something to happen. Late in the afternoon I spoke to the midwife again and she asked me to come to the office to be checked. Bad news...only slightly more dilated than the day before. Oh well, back home again we went. As the night progressed the contractions got stronger and some were pretty close together, but they were definitely irregular. The midwife told me to go the hospital and get checked. By this time I was feeling pretty miserable. We headed to the hospital about 10pm (I think) and they hooked me up to a monitor and started watching my contractions. They also had me walk around for about a half hour to see if that would help anything. By the time I laid down again my contractions were strong, but weren't doing much of anything. I spoke to my midwife and she gave me 3 options. The first was that I could go home and take some Tylenol PM, soak in a hot bath, and sleep until things started progressing more. The second was that I could stay in the hospital and they would hook me up to an IV and give me meds to help me sleep. The final step was that we could try to augment labor (breaking my water, pitocin, etc.) Well, Jon and I talked about it and I really wanted to go home and try to sleep. Back to the house we headed. Jon dropped me off while he went to pick up the Tylenol PM. I laid in the bath for a bit, but it was doing nothing for me. I took the Tylenol PM, but my contractions just got worse. They would often come one right after the other with maybe 15 seconds break in between. They were also lasting for like 2 minutes. I tried to lay down, but the contractions hurt so much that I couldn't. So, I walked around the house for awhile. Jon put in a movie to try to distract me and continued to try to make me eat (poor guy was trying all day, but I just couldn't eat much of anything). Sometime around 2 or 3am I decided that I couldn't take it anymore and I needed to go back to the hospital. We arrived and they hooked me up to the monitors again and told me that my little guy was sleeping and they needed him more active before they could give me the medicine. So I worked real hard to drink cranberry juice and sprite to perk up the little guy. After at least an hour, but maybe closer to 2 they have me some kind of medicine that starts with a "s" or a "c" to help me sleep. My midwife explained that I would probably still feel the strong contractions, but that the medication should help me get some rest. It worked wonders. I only slept about 3 or 4 hours, but it felt like much more. My midwife came to check on me in the morning and there had been some progress, but definitely not much. We once again discussed options and my midwife explained that my labor so far had been very unusual. She explained that the contractions I was having were not effectively moving me along and that they were stronger than they should be at this point and closer together. After Jon and I discussed the options with the midwife we decided to have them break my bag of waters. At this point, we finally called the family members and let them know what was going on. I was checked a few hours later and I was at 5 cm so I was half way there (yep, 31 hours and only at 5 cm). After awhile the contractions started getting much stronger again and closer together. I was worried that my labor was going back to how it was previously. A few hours later I called my midwife to talk to her and explain that I was trying to relax through the contractions, but I felt the urge to push on some of them. She had a nurse check me and the nurse explained that I was about ready to push. The midwife made her way over and everyone got the room ready for delivery. I ended up pushing for 1 and a half to 2 hours and we decided about half way through to use a small bit of pitocin to regulate my contractions because they were becoming irregular again. Our little man was finally born 36 hours after labor started, but he was face up! The little stinker didn't turn the right way to come out, but he sure came out screaming his little head off. So, I didn't end up with an epidural, but I did need a little help along the way.
After the Birth Info (Otherwise Known as the Non-Gross Stuff):
Jon was super cute when Jared was born. Some dads cry, not this guy he laughed. He was such a trooper through the whole thing. He was getting very frustrated by my unusual labor and seeing me in pain so I know he was glad that it was all over. So, little Jared was born on 4/22/09 (Earth Day) at 2:19pm weighing 8 lbs 1 oz and measuring 20.5 inches. Good thing he didn't wait any longer to join us, he might have gotten too big. =)
He was and is absolutely perfect. I got to hold him as much as I wanted before the nurse got him all cleaned up and Jon got to hold him too. It was a great moment.
We had lots of visitors after that and came home the next day. My labor was not quite what I had anticipated, but what is? =)