He's here!
Thursday morning I took Layne on a walk. A LONG walk! A 3.2 mile long walk! It felt great! So for the rest of the day I felt weaker but with a really tight tummy.
At 8 ish that evening after the girls had all gone down to bed, I hopped on the exercise ball and started bouncing. I started to notice that I had some mild contractions that started at 10 minutes apart. They gradually increased and I reported to Dan via text as he was at work. At around 10:30pm I texted with a report of 6 minutes apart and some guy at Dan's work gladly took over the remainder of his closing night shift. My sister Kale came to stay for the night and we made it in to the hospital at around midnight. The contractions were tolerable but the pressure was heavy. So the midwife suggested I head in and get a look!
At 1pm only 3cm.
At 3pm only 4cm, so the midwife suggested to break my water and that normally speeds up the process.
Well, it didn't For 3 hours I rested through a few contractions.
As a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After C-Section) it is not often that a doctor or midwife will use Pitocin, or much of anything to encourage labor along. Well, there was a Doctor on that night that was willing to stick around and get my contractions coming along.
Come along they did. Within a few minutes after the pitocin started I noticed a huge intensity in contractions. This was around 6am. At 8am I had only progressed to 6cm. And it was then when I asked for that sweet sweet epidural. I've done a completely NATURAL childbirth...but man oh man I much prefer the epidural!
At 8:30am the drugs kicked in and so did the dilation! I quickly progressed to a full 10cm by 9am and pushed maybe 10 times, less that 20 minutes and at 9:25am our little man was born!
Fletcher Shillig Morris
He looked teeny tiny! But cried something fierce! He weighed 6lbs 15oz, 20inches tall. That's little for my kids, my girls have all been at least 8 1/2 lbs or more!
Dan and I got to hold him and love him for a few hours before we went to the recovery room. The nurses didn't like the way his breathing sounded and after asking them to wait and wait to take him her finally let him get some tests done. Layne was the only one that got to hold him before he was taken to the nursery with Dan. His breathing sounded "heavy" or "labored" as they put it. It was that cute kind of purring or cooing sound. In my heart I knew it was nothing, but seeing him have different tests done just ached.
After sooo much praying and crying the noise just stopped. I think that everyone must have been praying all at the same time. He was fine. And he was able to come back in to my room and stay with us.
We did have a few visitors while in the hospital. My sister Kale and cousin Rachel were the very first to meet and hold him. Then his sisters saw him for half a second. Dan's sister Tiffany, and Great Grandparents Morris came but only got to see him through a window because he was taken for testing.
The big girls got to play with their Aunts Kale and Tiffany while Mom and Dad were at the hospital. Then they played with our good friends the Bulkleys. And Dan stayed the night at home with them then brought them the next day to pick up baby brother and me and bring us all home. It was such a neat feeling having us all together in the van!
And as for his name....
Many of you know that I had thought it would be neat to stick with the pattern we have existing with out girls. Their names are one syllable, strong vowel, 5 letters, and ends in E. Well, we just couldn't come up with something just right. Thanks to everyone that contributed with awesome suggestions! Back in November while still in CA, I came up with Fletcher or Lewis. Dan immediately shot them down because he thought it silly to think of names when we didn't even know what we'd be having, boy or girl. But then, in February he came home one night from work and said, "Hey what do you think about these names: Lewis of Fletcher?"
HA!!!
Fletcher it is! We love it!
We love this tiny little guy!
He doesn't cry much...yet. He seems to be a quiet one. Serious almost.
We'll see what he turns out to be like!
But then, our travels took us west once more back to Michigan where we met up with Dan's sisters and their spouse/family, and his parents to venture north where the trees turned more and more green. The skies more blue, and the clouds even seemed whiter and fluffier than ever! It was such a treat to stay in Mackinaw City, MI, in a fantastic condo. We then took a ferry to Mackinac Island, MI. You may know it from the movie "Somewhere In Time" with Jane Seymore and Christopher Reeves. The only way to get around the tiny island is to walk, bike, horse and carriage! What a gorgeous island! The homes were beautiful! The company was a delight, the fudge delicious, and although it rained nearly the whole day on the island I felt like the luckiest kid ever!
I took more pictures but these are just some of the highlights from the trip!
