Stuart's Birth

I started having contractions the afternoon of Thursday March 30th (to my delight!) My due date was April 2nd. We packed the kids bags and texted my parents. Julie from church brought us dinner that night around 6, as the church had started a meal delivery schedule even before the baby came! She brought pork sliders, slaw, homemade applesauce. We told her I was having contractions and she quickly left, haha! We ate our meal together as a family, and then Mimi and Boo came to get the kids and dogs.

Once the house was quiet, Dillon and I both felt calm and decided to walk around the neighborhood, the weather that night was clear blue skies and a warm breeze. We didn't get too far, as a church member/neighbor stopped when he saw us walking and stopped to chat. We walked west down Pine Street and then decided to head to the hospital and walk some more around the parking lot. On the drive to the hospital Dillon had to pull the car over for an intense contraction so I could stand. Once we parked, it was starting to get dark. We walked back and forth on the sidewalk for about half an hour. The pain was really picking up, so we decided to check in.

On the Labor & Delivery floor, they checked me and told me I was 3 or 4 cm dilated, and I was so disappointed. I knew I was in labor but they wouldn't check me in until I progressed further, so I was forced to walk around to speed things up. They instructed me to walk for an hour or two and then they would recheck me. During this time the pain became so intense I started shaking, then threw up. Dillon quickly notified the nurse and asked how long it would take to get the epidural, so the nurse snapped into action.

The epidural took a little longer to place than my previous ones, and other than an unpleasant zing that shot down my leg, I was soon feeling relief. We got a couple hours of rest, then the nurse checked me and decided it was time to call Dr. McBrayer. She arrived and within minutes, one push later, Stuart Franklin was born! 8 lbs, 7 oz born at 2:30 am

He had a head full of blond hair! Just like Dillon did. The nurses all said he was the cutest baby of the week. We had some time with him to nurse him and then our nurse took us down to the postpartum unit.

We couldn't decide on a name. The morning came and the lady in charge of the social security card came by and pressured us to pick a name. I was feeling extremely tired and loopy (I thought it was from my pain killers but later found out it was caused by extreme anemia) and had difficulty talking about names.

My parents brought Reese and Lee up to the hospital and everyone held Stuart. The pictures say it all!

Then Chrissie, John and Ray showed up with Smoothies- so delicious!

We came home and still didn't have a name- finally 1-2 days after we came home, we nixed the names Wyatt and Hank and settled on Stuart. Dillon picked his middle name, Franklin.
After his birth, Dillon took a week off. We had meals delivered from people at church for over a month!