..HE'S HERE..

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we are more than thrilled to announce the arrival of baby Finn Jeffrey Powell!! It feels like we've been waiting FOREVER for this little guy to get here...but he was well worth the wait! :-)

He weighed in at a whopping 8lbs 2oz and is 21 inches long - bigger and taller than I was expecting originally but not at all surprising since he was a week overdue.

Here is the story of Baby Finn's birth...

For the past three weeks I have been between 2-3 cm dilated and completely effaced. My nurse told me three weeks ago that I could go at any time...and everyone that I told those numbers too thought the same thing! Hence my extreme impatience with each passing day that he did not come. At my appointment two weeks ago Dr. Barton (who I absolutely adore) said, "wow, I am really surprised to see you here, I thought you for sure would have had him by now!" Ha ha great, just what I wanted to hear! ;-) Well the days kept on going by - me, along with a ton of other people were 100% convinced Mr. Finn was going to make his grand entrance on April Fools Day bc of the joke I played on everyone last year (I announced I was prego on Facebook and 99% of my friends and family believed me)! Well April 1st came and went and still no Baby Finn. At that point I gave up hope ha ha and in my head came to terms with the fact that I would probably have to be induced.

Last Monday at my appointment I hadn't really made any progress...but I was still far enough dilated that really it could have happened at any point. Never the less we scheduled an induction date - April 11. At that moment another week seemed unbearable! I was fine physically, but
mentally I was going insane! I just wanted to hold my baby boy!! The week passed surprisingly fast and I actually got SO much done. I got a
pedicure, bought finn some more clothes (gap was having a sale, how could I not?!), completed some finishing touches on his nursery, spent
a ton of time in bed just relaxing with drawers and phobs (aka duke and claus), and pretty much just took it easy! I have to admit it was a
pretty good last week. The only thing I was way bummed about was Lance's sister, Tiffany, was coming to town April 8-10 and we thought
he'd be here by then when she planned this trip over a month ago, but of course April 8th came and still no Bebe Finn.

On Saturday the 9th I had nothing to do until the evening. I woke up and it was snowing and Lance had to work so I decided to stay in bed
all day! Ha ha and I mean ALL day. :-) Well when I got up to go to the bathroom at about 8:30 that morning, my underwear were wet. Not soaked completely but wet enough that it was uncomfortable and I had to change. It crossed my mind that my water may be leaking...I have
heard of that happening. However I went to the hospital a few weeks earlier for the same thing and it was just mucus that was coming out. I
felt stupid for being paranoid, so I decided to wait it out. Well the day went on and I had to change my underwear 4 more times! Finally I had the sense to put a pad on, and in 3 hrs I had soaked through that too! This didn't seem normal so I called the on-call doctor to see what he recommended. Of course he told me it would be best to go to the hospital and get checked...but he also said that since I was already dilated
to a 3 it was very likely that it was just mucus and normal vaginal discharge coming out of me. He said that in most cases, contractions will start within 18-24 hrs of your water breaking, but you run greater risk of infection if you go any longer. Stupid me didn't want to be that overly paranoid person who went into the hospital a second time bc she thought her water was leaking. I mean how many times does that even
happen?! Most women's water doesn't break until they are in full on labor and for those women whose water breaks before active labor it is
usually a fill-your-shoes type of gush/puddle that comes out! So I convinced myself that I was being paranoid and didn't go in to the hospital.
That night at about 10 o'clock I started having contractions. REAL ones, which I was thrilled about even though they hurt. I had never felt an
actual contraction until that point, and was afraid I would be that girl who delivered her baby at home bc she didn't leave for the hospital in time! The contractions lasted about 3 hours, then they went away, so I knew I wasn't in labor yet.

We woke up this morning and just took it easy...it was our stake conference, and of course we didn't go! Ha ha Mostly I didn't want to see
people from my ward and hear them say, "you still haven't had that baby?!" ;-) jk. My contractions started up again around 10:00 - they hurt worse than the night before and were 6 minutes apart. Lance's fam came over for breakfast since it was Tiff's last day in town, and I wasn't
feeling too great. At that point (12:00) they were 5 minutes apart. Around 2:00 they were 4 min apart...i waited for an hour or so then decided it was time to go to the hospital! YAY!!

So we got here and were admitted by 3:30 pm. A nurse hooked me up to the heart rate/contraction monitor thing, then she checked to see if my water had broken....and indeed it had. The nurse said "yep, you've ruptured, you are having a baby today!" Holy moly...what we had been waiting for all these weeks. Unfortunately, because I waited so long to come in I had a fever, which is a sign of infection. I felt so horrible -
already the worst mom ever!! The nurses assured me that the baby was doing just fine, but I still felt so bad. Around 4:30 pm the nurse hooked me up to an IV and gave me antibiotics for my fever and started me on pitocin so that my contractions would become stronger. The
on-call doctor who I spoke with the day before came in and explained what was going on. Lance asked him how long it would be before the baby came and he said anywhere between 2 and 30 hours! Ha ha what a great time frame, eh? He said that bc I was dilated to a 4 my
labor might not be as long as some women, but I wasn't about to get my hopes up! I was prepared for the longest labor in history since this little guy showed no previous signs of wanting to leave my uterus any time soon!

At this point I was feeling terrible. I think a lot of it was my fever...not only were my contractions extremely painful but my body just wasn't up to par. I would describe my contractions as terrible period cramps combined with abdominal Charlie horses! Ha ha plus I was feeling extremely nauseous. My nurse told me I could have my epidural whenever I wanted it, but she and the doc both recommended I wait until
the pain was unbearable so that it would have a greater effect. I lasted about an hour! Ha ha I felt like a huge baby, but can I just say THANK THE HOLY HEAVENS!!! Once that thing was in I was happy as could be. From that point on my labor and delivery were absolutely
wonderful! I didn't even care if my labor lasted 10x longer than it would have if I had waited, I was just glad to be able to enjoy the whole experience rather than wish I was dead! ;-) jk.

6:15 rolled around - exactly one hour after my epidural - and the nurse checked to see what I was dilated to. I almost didn't believe my ears when she said "you're all the way there...you're at a 10." Are you freaking serious?! OMG! I was so happy. However, his head was still a bit high, so the nurse said we would most likely wait for another hour before starting to push to let the head descend some more...but she called the doc for instructions and he wanted me to start pushing right then. So we did. Starting at 6:50 I pushed and pushed and pushed! For nearly 2 hours I pushed! But it wasn't bad since I couldn't feel much. And honestly I wasn't that tired, I mean heck, I had only been in labor
for a couple hours! MY doctor showed up around 8:00. I was SO thrilled! I always just assumed it would be the on-call doctor who would deliver me since it was a weekend but I was wrong. I have grown to absolutely love Dr. Barton over these past nine months...he is so easy going, which balances out my neurotic paranoid personality, and he just has the best bedside manner. I did get annoyed every time I had to wait over an hour to see him during all my appointments, but in retrospect that waiting was worth it. :-) Needless to say, having him deliver me just made my whole experience even that much better! Anyway, we pushed a few times but I still had a little ways to go so he left for a while. After 30 minutes we still hadn't made much progress so the nurse called the doc back in, he snipped me (sorry for tmi!) and as he was doing it he said, "okay, you are going to deliver him on your next push so make it your best one." I think I went into shock at that point...after 24 years of imagining what it would be like to have my own baby, 9 months of carrying this sweet little boy in my belly, a month of waiting impatiently for him to get here and 4 hours of an absolutely enjoyable labor, I couldn't believe it was time to meet Finn and look into his adorable eyes!! The moment came, the doc told me to push, I did and out popped Finn!!! Dr. Barton told me that if he would have given me the episiotomy an hour earlier he would have come that much sooner. Thanks for the extra hour of pushing doc! Ha jk.

The second I heard that scream and saw that face and held my sweet, handsome, adorable, beautiful baby boy....I can honestly say it was the absolute best moment of my life. I started talking to him and to see him just stare at me...is there anything better in the world? He knew who his mommy was. :-) After a few minutes of laying with him they took him to be weighed and measured and of course they needed to check his vitals to make sure he didn't have any infections. Then we let the grandparents in the room...my mom, Lance's mom, his dad and dad's girlfriend were all waiting impatiently outside...they were so thrilled to finally meet him. :-)

So there is the story of Mr. Finn Jeffrey Powell's birth. We are absolutely in love with him and so thrilled he is finally here! As long as the wait seemed, it was so totally worth it. We are just grateful he is healthy and so far he has been such a sweet baby. We couldn't be happier.