Welcome to the world Connor!

On the very early morning of January 11th, Derek and I headed in to the Sturgeon General Hospital in St. Albert to be induced. They got us set up in our room and then we got started! We were in pretty good spirits at first, it was still so surreal. Finally we were going to get to see our baby!





Derek doesn't do mornings all that well!




The induction was started with a gel application, Cervadil, at about 9:00am. Nothing was really happening, but they had to wait 6 hours before they could do another application. At about 3:30pm they gave me another dose of the Cervadil. I started feeling some minor contractions around suppertime, and around 9pm I thought that my water broke. I called the nurse in to check and sure enough it had!

They had me get into the shower and use the 'birthing ball' in the shower, which was nice! The contractions were getting to the point where I thought I would probably be heading to the hospital, if I had gone in to labor on my own. But I was feeling pretty good about getting through them, so Derek went home to check on the dogs.

By midnight I had still not dilated any more, I was only 1.5cm, so they decided to start the pitocin. After that things just went crazy! Despite the fact that my blood pressure was high, the nurses thought I should walk around to try to speed things up. So Derek and I headed out into the halls, but at this point the contractions were so bad that according to Derek I sounded like a cat giving birth... Yep, I had lost it!

After a painful and very loud walk back to my room, the nurse checked me again, and after all that pain I figured I had to be at least 8cm! Sadly, I was still at 1.5cm, but I was allowed to get an epidural anyway!

After the epidural was in, which took many jabs, Derek and I managed to get some sleep until morning. At about 8:00am on January 12, the OB checked me again and I was only 3cm dilated, but the baby had dropped and was trying to squish through my undilated cervix, which was causing a lot of stress on the baby, making his heart rate drop dangerously low.

So... they decided to get us in for a C-section immediately. Everything from this point went very quickly! At 10:01am on January 12, Connor David Mellott was born!






Other than when they quickly showed him to me over the sheet, this was the first time I saw Connor. He was perfect!





I still had to be stitched(and stapled!) back together, so Derek had Connor all to himself for the first half hour of his life.





Connor weighed 7lb 10oz, and was 19 inches long!





Here is our first family photo... I don't really remember this much, I was still very groggy, and had finally just stopped shaking! After this I threw up everywhere and then passed out. Oh, the joys of childbirth!






Connor's lip was cut by the forceps they used to get him out. I had a contraction just as they were delivering him, and his head turned right into the forceps. He was a little bruised and battered, but he still looks beautiful!

Despite the fact that absolutely nothing went as planned, it was an absolutely unforgettable experience! I am so happy to be a mom!