Cooper's Birth Story

It all started Saturday evening...

I got taken off of bed rest the previous Wednesday and since being off of bed rest my contractions had completely slowed down. By Saturday I was going crazy. I resigned to the fact that I would not be having this baby anytime soon. This had already been my longest pregnancy by 2 days (pathetic, I know!!) Nevertheless, I was so done being pregnant, but I realized that I would probably go full term this time. With that in mind...

Saturday evening we went over to Tim's parents house. Tim went with the guys to the Priesthood Session of General Conference while Payton, Parker & I hung out with the girls. I was so excited just to go hold my new little niece and let the boys play at Grandma's. As soon as the guys left I started having little whimpy contractions. They were nothing like I had been having, but they were really regular. I thought it was a little odd, but they were pretty easy to ignore. After about an hour, I thought that I better time the contractions, just for fun. They were coming 5 min, 6 min, 8 min, 5 min, 5 min, 6 min, 5 min, 4 min, 3 min, 5 min, 3 min, 4 min, 3 min, 4 min, 3 min, 4 min. I couldn't believe it. However, I still did not think it was labor. I was laughing about them. I texted Tim during conference to let him know that they needed to pick up Cafe Rio after they were done and that we probably needed to go to the hospital.

The guys got home and by that point my contractions were all 3-4 minutes apart. Tim ate his dinner and then we headed up to the hospital. Both of us were planning on being sent home. I did not believe that this was labor. I felt great!

Here we are just before leaving Tim's parents house to go to the hospital...


We got to the hospital at 9:00 p.m. and they hooked me up to all the machines. She checked me and said that I was dilated to 4cm. She said they would watch the contractions then call my doctor to see what he wanted to do. We waited for an hour. She came back and checked me again after an hour. I was dilated to 4.5cm and my contractions were very regular. She said that my doctor wanted to admit me. What? I asked her if that meant I was going to have a baby?!? I still couldn't believe that this was actually happening. I still felt amazing.

Tim & I waiting through the long labor process. We are both excited to get this over with and meet our new little guy!



Within about an hour, my contractions started getting painful. About an hour later I requested the epidural. This was the worst part of the entire labor and delivery. YUCK! (Tim almost passed out while watching him give it to me.) After that was done, we spent the night laying around, waiting for my body to do it's thing. I only dilated about a 1/2 cm every hour. They couldn't give me anything to speed it up because I was pre term. It was a long, long night! The babies heart rate kept dropping, I had a fever and they couldn't get in touch with my doctor. I stayed at 6cm for 3 hours. They wanted to break my water, but they had to talk to my doctor before they could. They finally called his home phone and he was sound asleep. I guess his pager wasn't working. He finally gave them the "ok" to break my water and that helped speed things up. After 10 hours of labor (mostly just lying around waiting), Cooper decided that he was immediately ready to enter this world. I felt a little pressure and called the nurse. She came to check me out and said, "Don't cough or sneeze. I'll get the doctor." His head was right there. I literally pushed twice...once for his head and the second for the rest of his body. It was a breeze! He was born at 7:04 a.m.

They put him on me and I couldn't believe it. He was perfect. He looked just like my other boys. It was the most incredible feeling to hold him and see his perfect little body. It's the most amazing, exhilarating, emotional, exciting and intense feeling in the whole world. We felt so blessed and were so grateful to finally be able to meet our new little guy.