he's here!!!

sorry it took me so long to get to this my blogger friends, but i've been a little tied up :) our little guy finally arrived - yay!!! beckam richard marshall tolman was born to us on dec 11th at 3:06am and weighed in at 6lbs1oz and was 20in long. it is the craziest thing to be sitting next to my son right now - my son....weird - and to be blogging about him finally being in our family after carrying him around for 9 months, and it is awesome! i know i'm the mom, but he is seriously so perfect and so much fun and everything i ever dreamed of and more! here is a little of the story of our lives the past week or so.......

we went in to be induced on the 9th last week (tuesday), and i got all hooked up to the monitors, and dr.koegler was there to get things started, and then we got the bad news that things got busy and there were a few women who hadn't had their babies yet who they thought would have, so we got sent away with directions to call back in a bit to see if anything opened up. we both had a bad feeling about it and were right when we called back and got the new direction to head home and wait for the call that there was room at the inn for us. so, we went home and waited......painful i tell ya. we were both so anxious, and when we got the call the next day around 4pm, we were ecstatic! we hurried and packed up and headed in, and they for real induced me this time.

i got the 1st gel induction at 520pm, and then we did some laps around the atrium of the hospital and visited my cousin and his new little baby, holli to try and get things going. i started feeling tinges of pain about 8ish which was i surprised about cuz i have heard inductions cause labor to be long and hard. i didn't think anything was going to happen for a while. i was definitely having contractions around 830, but they weren't all that bad. dust and i visited with my parents and read some magazines, and dr.koegler came back in for a delivery around 930, so he gave me some more gel and said nothing was really progressing yet. by 1030, i was in pain for sure, and i was having some back labor, so the nurse talked me into taking some ativan to "help me sleep." ya right! it didn't even touch me, and we headed to the shower for a bit to try and help that back labor. it worked ok, and it was nice to not be sitting in a bed, and when the doc was back at 1130, he checked me and found i was 3-4cm dilated, so he broke my water. i was so super excited to be progressing, but i didn't know that the contractions got so much worse after the water was broken! i felt ok though cuz dr.koegler said i could have my epidural when i was 3-4cm - woohoo! the anathesiologist was even at the hospital, and it looked like everything was working out swell and according to plan........not so much though.

my contractions kept getting longer and harder, and no giant needle was headed my way. they gave me morphine to tide me over - did absolutely nothing - and by the time they moved me into the delivery suite, i was practically rolling on the bed in pain. at about 130, i felt pressure and like i needed to push, and when the nurse checked my doubtfully, she said it was time to push. i remember looking at dust and saying sadly - this wasn't the plan. where are my drugs? anyway......no drugs besides the useless morphine and after an hour or so of pushing, our little guy came out at 306. his heart rate was dropping as i was pushing, so they had to give me an episiotomy and found that the cord was around his neck. he was super white when he came out and wasn't really breathing all that well, so the cleaned up him, and i got to hold him for about 1.26 minutes, and then he was off to the NICU to get some oxygen and to be monitored. i was really sad i couldn't have him with my right away, but i was glad no one was panicking and that they said he would be ok. it was 7 hours before they brought him to our room, and i waited anxiously while dust had a little snooze. when we got him though, life was complete, and i was in love :) life seriously can't get much better than that moment.

anyway......that's my little (or big - sorry!) labor story for you. i was super duper nervous about it before, and i still can't believe that i didn't get my drugs, but it's kinda nice to know that i can do it and that i made it through and lived to tell the tale. life is so great now. i'm sore of course but feeling pretty good about life. beckam is such a good baby - only really cries when he needs something, and his cry is a pretty quiet one too (for now anyway). he makes us smile all the time, and there hasn't been too many minutes go by where someone isn't holding him :) i love being a mom so much! i love changing his diapers and settling him down and putting him to bed, and we're working on the nursing thing still, but we'll get those kinks ironed out soon enough too. life is just awesome, and i'm so glad he's here, and oh.....dust is amazing by the way. he loves being a dad so incredibly much, and he was awesome through the labor and has been amazing with getting up with us at night and doing all the daddy things that guys do. we love being parents, and we love little beckam, and there is my report blogger world :)

beckam right after sliding out :)


me and my 1.26 minutes with my little guy


us with him in the NICU - no holding, but we could touch him at least


proud papa


beckam - our little stud :)