Sutton's Story

Sutton Monroe is here!!! It has been a very exciting three days!! As you saw from the previous post, we left for the hospital a little earlier than we thought we would. Here is Sutton's Story.

Right around midnight on Wednesday, Chris and I had just gone to bed when the calendar alarm started going off on my cell phone in the living room! I told Chris to just ignore it because it would stop after a few times. It just kept going, so I got up and went to turn it off. The calendar alarm was one that I had set for Wednesday, Oct. 2 and was titled..." Let's go have Sutton today!" So I turned it off and headed back to bed. Right when I walked into the bedroom, my water broke, and I said, "Chris, I think my water just broke!!!" So we knew it was time to head for the hospital!! I wasn't having any contractions, so I wasn't in a big hurry, and decided to go ahead and post the previous blog entry really quick. Then we were on our way within the next 15-20 minutes. It's about a 40 minute drive to the hospital from our house. Since it was so late we only called Chris' parents and my parents to let them know we were on our way. I also called my sister Kristen. She lives in Maui, HI, and since it was only 8pm there, I wanted to tell her. When I was on the phone with Kristen, I had my first contractions. By the time we got to the hospital my contractions were 3 minutes apart and, I thought they were quite painful!!!!

He's on his way, and we made it to the hospital!

Once we got all checked in and in a room, the nurses checked me and announced that I was dilated to an 8!!!! We couldn't believe it. I thought things were going a little crazy. Then the wonderful and sweet Nurse Melissa, came in and told me, honey, we aren't going to be able to get an epidural" I just wanted to cry at first, but then decided to go with it, that this was the way it was supposed to be...and I CAN DO IT!!! Well, they checked me again...all three nurses....and Sutton had tricked us, I was actually only dilated to a 4. (Apparently they had checked me previously during a contraction and I didn't know that you weren't supposed to do that. I wasn't hooked up to a monitor yet, so they didn't know and I didn't tell them) So I thought that was good and bad news. Good news, I got to have the epidural....bad news, I wasn't nearly as far along as we thought!!!

The WONDERFUL anesthesiologist came and gave me an epidural...which didn't really hurt any, but for some reason made me very nauseous and feel like I was going to pass out...but I didn't. The pain went away and that was BEAUTIFUL. Chris slept for about 3 hours, and I slept for only about 1 1/2 hours the whole night. But I was progressing, so they didn't have to induce labor any with the pitocin. We were told that Dr. Chambers would be by to check me about 8 or 8:30. About 7am, I was dilated to a 7. Dr. Chambers got there right around 9am. She took a quick check and said....we were ready to push. Everybody went around and got everything ready. My labor and delivery nurse had me do a practice push...I could not feel ANYTHING and had no idea if I was doing anything right....but I was. Nurse Kathy said Sutton would be here in no time. I pushed through about 4 contractions...and Sutton Monroe made his appearance. I couldn't believe it. It was amazing and he was beautiful and crying. Everyone kept saying how long he was. He was 20 1/2 inches long and 7 pounds and 4 ounces.

Getting all cleaned up by Nurse Betty the Baby Catcher (as she introduced herself!)

Papa O'Neill will probably say he has his Mom's lungs!!!

Hmmm, this world looks a little scary!

First introduction to Mommy!

GOD IS GOOD!!!!