Grant Foster Bowen

Look what I got 3 days after Christmas!

I'm going to share the birth story, but if you're really just here to see pictures of more baby yumminess than one can possibly handle, then I will throw in several pics of my sweet boy.

Let me preface the story with the fact that I (for insurance reasons) decided to deliver in Clovis.

Which is located 1 hour away.

This little fact caused a fair bit of worry 

and at least one hour of reading "what to do if you deliver your baby in the car."

Thankfully, (not to ruin the ending) that information can now safely be stored 

in the "thank goodness I didn't have to use it" section of my brain.

I started having contractions every 15-20 minutes apart about 2 weeks before Grant was actually born.

And for the week before he was born, they would get to 8-10 minutes apart.

Not painful, but very consistent.

In other words, confusing.

I did this with both of my other boys,

but with them, I went in and stayed to have the baby.

This time however,

I drove an hour, was sent to walk the halls, 

was told I was only dialated 2 and then 3 centimeters aaand was sent home.

TWICE.

Hmph.  I was slightly offended that I had hoofed it around the hospital for an hour in my super attractive hospital gown only to be told to get out of town.

That whole hour from the hospital thing was seriously messing with me.

Those nurses were not about to do me any favors either because that hospital was one busy place!

Lots and lots of babies.

Finally, on the morning of the 27th I woke up to some painful contractions.

I told Dave to go to work, but to be ready just in case.

In the meantime, I spent all day contracting every 15 minutes or so.

They kept going and finally around 10 pm 

(why do they always speed up in the pm?)

they were 5-7 minutes apart and I decided that we should take another trip to the hospital.

I felt pretty certain that we would actually get to stay this time.

And if not, I was going to be one grouchy pregnant lady from several hours of painful labor.

Lucky for me, those contractions kept on going 

(causing Dave to drive a bit faster than normal)

and when we got there I was 4.5 cm.

BUT, the crazy nurse didn't have the monitor on correctly so she didn't see any contractions for those first 30 minutes I was laying in that triage room.

She came in, told me I might need to walk the halls

and I gave her a super friendly look and told her she might want to adjust her monitors because these contractions were definitely happening. 

I finally got my "ticket to stay," around midnight

but once again, that place was packed!

So, I got to "hang out" in the triage room for what turned out to be all night.

For the record, those beds are wicked comfortable...

Oh wait, no they aren't.

Not at all.

Truthfully though, I didn't really mind that much.

I was just happy to be staying.

And happy that Dave said I looked cute when I was all flushed in between contractions.

Thanks honey, you really know how to make a girl swoon. :)

The worst part of the whole experience was the really loud and animated hispanic lady that was just one curtain over.  

I thought for sure I was going to have to listen to her deliver a baby right there.

Which I am not going to lie - made me want to head for the hills.

It turns out that she was only dialated 5cm.

But I also know that she swore she wouldn't have anymore kids, she asked for a C-section just to get it over with, she's very skilled at switching between English and Spanish - neither of which made much sense, and she wanted to kill her husband.

I wonder if Dave thought I was cute 

when her yelling and moaning drained the color from my face and made my eyes pop??

At 9am and 8cm I was finally moved to an actual delivery room.

Thankfully my epidural was keeping me pretty comfortable 

because the OB on call was running from one delivery to another 

and I was fairly low on the pecking order.

Finally, at 1:06pm we met our sweet 8lb 3oz baby boy.

I was (am) completely in heaven.

I am a total sucker for the newborn stage.

I am thoroughly enjoying spending many hours a day holding, 

kissing, smelling, feeding and squeezing him.

You just can't beat having a new baby in the home.

My bigger kids seem to think he's ok too.

Sometimes I can't believe that these people are all mine.

They are mostly completely out of control.

Our house is very loud and very busy.

We've got too much laundry and plenty of messes,

but I think I'll keep them anyway.

For the record, it may look like we have already taken Grant to the barber,

but that "combed over" look is all thanks to the giant hurricane going on on the back of his head.

That hair is going to be a whole lot of fun to cut later on.