The day that changed my life forever

Hunter Joseph Schafer

I can't believe it has taken me a month to final write about Hunter's birth.  Well, I can actually because all I have wanted to do this last month was be with him so blogging was the last thing on my mind.

April 26, 2013 is the day my life changed forever and it is the best change ever!  I am so blessed to call this little man mine and I will forever thank God for this wonderful blessing.  The night before we went to the hospital I could not sleep.  I was so excited to get there and get things started so I could finally meet Hunter.  I was restless all night and then finally just decided around 5 to take a shower, get ready and fix blueberry muffins :).  Matt got up around 6 and showered, got ready, ate and we got on the road to Manhattan.

Family of 3!

I was all checked in and in my room by 7:30 and hooked up to pitocin.  My doctor came in to check on me around 8:30 and broke my water.  After that the contractions really started to come on.  They weren't really bad they were just annoying.  I had heard horror stories about pitocin so I was expecting things to be much worse.  Matt and I just hung out (well he hung out with me because I couldn't really do anything) most of the morning.  Our nurse checked on me about every hour and I still had to check my blood sugar as well.  Lucky for me I got to eat a little bit during the day because of the gestational diabetes.  I had muffins and peanut butter and crackers :)  Around the lunch hour I was so exhausted from not sleeping the night before and the contractions were getting a little more uncomfortable that I asked for the epidural.  I thought maybe once I got it I could get some sleep.  Once I had that Matt left and went to lunch with his parents so I could rest.  That did not happen.  Once Matt was gone and I closed my eyes for about 15 mins the nurse was back in telling me that Hunter was not responding properly after the contractions so she needed me to sit up and lean to one side.  She left and then was back in a few minutes later saying that was not working.  We changed sides again and that seemed to help.  About 20 mins later she was back saying he stopped responding again so they had to put me on oxygen.

During all this time Matt was at lunch and I was starting to get really emotional.  I didn't know what was going on but our nurse was so good and just kept telling me that it was going to be ok.  I finally text Matt and asked him to come back as soon as he could.  He was just pulling into the hospital so I wasn't alone for that long.  He felt bad for leaving but neither of us knew anything was going to happen like that.  Everything turned out just fine but I never got any rest :)  When I got the epidural I was almost to a 5 so I was progressing nicely.

Perfect little man.

Around 5:00 the nurse came back in and said I was really close.  She told me to push a little on the next contraction and I did and she immediately told me to stop.  She said I was ready and they needed to get me prepped and get our doctor there.  She did a few things for me and then left.  It wasn't 5 minutes later that I really started to feel the pressure.  It was crazy.  I looked at Matt and I was like, "I hope they get here soon because I think Hunter is coming and coming fast!"  I was able to feel the contractions again, and the pressure was really intense.  That lasted about 30mins until the nurse came back in and told me I could push my little button to give myself more of the epidural!  Of course those 30mins seemed like FOREVER.  I pushed for more meds and then she sat me up, got me ready and at 6:00 we started the process.  I started pushing and then they had to change shifts.  So in the middle of labor we changed nurses.  I wasn't really thinking about it much since I was in labor but after the fact I thought, "what the heck" but then again no one knows how long I could have pushed.

One proud dad!

Matt was excellent since he was the only one helping me for awhile since the nurses were changing and going over things.  He would count for me and just talk me through everything.  I could not have done it without him.  About 6:30 my doctor got there and was there for 2 contractions and then little man was here!  She told me I made her job easy.  Haha.  So 38 mins after pushing we had our perfect little man.  I know I don't have anything to compare it to but for me I think I got lucky on this labor.  Things for the most part went very smoothly and as weird as it is to say it was easy.

Hunter Joseph Schafer was born on April 26, 2013 at 6:38pm.  He was 7lbs 11oz and 20.5 inches long.  He was perfect in every way!