Formal Introductions (Tater Baby 2.0)

**Disclaimer** We are talking about childbirth...and there are some photos, and yes, they are modest. 

41 weeks and 3 days. Or 10 days overdue. Either way, you are here. You finally arrived. In your own time. I had a doctor's appointment this morning and daddy had a haircut, but we missed both because we were too busy bringing you into the world. 

For the past 10 months, you have been Tater Baby 2.0 and today, on your birthday, the day we all officially met, you have a name: Shepherd James. And a family that loves you and has prayed for and over you too many times to count. You are perfect. And you complete our family...for now :) Or until mama and daddy receive sufficient rest and decide to add another.

You will be welcomed by mama and daddy (of course) but also by your big brudder dog, Norman, and your real big brother, Henry Wallace. We all plan to love and spoil you like you cannot even fathom...and Norman plans to hate you at first, and then lick you uncontrollably. It's inevitable my sweet fresh newborn.

A lot of people judged and questioned and critiqued us for wanting you so badly after your brother was born, but in our hearts, we knew Henry needed a brother/sister; and we are so thankful you are here. We knew that Henry would make a great big brother and a constant companion for you. We know that it's going to be hard, but we chose this and you. There has never been a child more wanted or loved than you and your brother. You both are the best and worst parts of us. And we love you.

On Monday night (July 25) I started feeling "uncomfortable" and had the urge to impulsively clean. As I kept cleaning, the uncomfortablenss grew and grew to the point where I had to stop what I was cleaning when I felt uncomfortable. That's when I decided, whoa, this might be labor!! And we started timing contractions. The contractions started like period cramps and a dull backache, the cramp and backache would last about 30 seconds and then subside and they got stronger and stronger every minute. I didn't believe my little contraction app when it said it was time to go to the hospital. We only live 2 miles from the hospital, but I didn't want to risk anything!

The 7 minute apart contractions are loading the car and driving to the hospital...too busy to document!

We officially started timing them at 9:30PM and contacted Tay's mama to watch Henry at 11:30PM and arrived at the emergency room at straight up midnight on July 26, 2016. Upon walking into the ER on my own volition, I had various nurses tell me I wasn't in labor, I assured them I was...and said either way, I'm 10 days overdue and you ARE NOT sending me home. They said ok :)

Once we were settled into a room, the OB nurses came in to check me...cervix was STILL posterior and they both agreed that I was maybe 2cm. That's when Tay and I knew we would be here a while. Henry's labor which was Pitocin induced last for 15 hours, so we could only assume that a natural labor with no Pitocin would be much much longer, if we only knew!

We labored (yes we, my hubs is INSTRUMENTAL in my deliveries and plays an active role) until 3:00am and then decided that if this baby does plan on coming today, we both may want some rest. At this point, the nurses inserted the IV and administered a half dose of Stadol to help me (and in turn, Tay) sleep. Upon receiving it, I said very loudly, "I feel high AF!" Mind you, I hardly take Tylenol for pain, have never done drugs in my life, so this was a whole new experience for me! It took the edge off the contractions just enough to where I could fall asleep. I could still feel them, but just didn't care about them as much. I would wake and pant and moan through them, and then fall back to sleep for 3 minutes until the next one came along. We were both able to sleep from 3:00am-4:00am and the nurses came in to check me again to see if I was progressing...apparently, my moaning was getting louder, so we all assumed I had made significant progress. NOPE, still 2cm. And getting frustrated.

At this point, I feel like I should tell y'all that we planned on an unmedicated delivery. I have a friend who recently did it and after speaking with her, chatting with Bradley instructors and reading several books, we thought it was something to look into. We didn't tell our families our plan about trying for a natural birth because we didn't want to get the epidural and then feel like a failure when family said, "I knew you couldn't do it!" or when they called us crazy for wanting to try. Again, regardless of how babies arrive and regardless of if and when pain meds are administered, birth is a big deal, and it's painful and it's your experience. All I can say is take control of your labor and delivery. My doctor knew all my wishes up front and guess what, he abided by every single one of them...and my son and I are both happy and healthy.

Since we had officially been laboring since 9:30PM and it was now 4:00am and we were still stuck at 2cm, we started talking about the epidural. Sometimes, it's hard for women to progress if they are focusing on the pain and an epidural can take the pain away and make progressing easier. We decided to wait until 7:00am when the doctor came in and if still no progress, we would then get the epidural; we just knew we had a L-O-N-G labor ahead of us.

Around 7:00am the doctor comes in to check my progress and break my water. I still wasn't progressing :( And when he broke the water, he noticed it was green, which means that it was a meconium delivery...most late babies are, so Tay and I expected this. Since we still hadn't progressed since 9:30PM, I decided the pain was too much and my dear sweet Tay administered the epidural. I know that I should start to feel relief soon, but I don't. Not at all. Not anywhere. I tell (well holler and scream and cuss I'm sure) Tay that I'm still in pain. He boluses the epidural, my right thigh eventually starts to tingle, but that's it. There was no pain relief ANYWHERE. The pain I was feeling began to get too intense to the point where I didn't know pain could get. And then I start vomiting (which is a sign of transition in labor) and is my body's response to pain. The doctor then checks me again since I'm showing signs of wanting to push...9cm. What? I've been stuck at 2cm ALL NIGHT AND MORNING and now I'm suddenly 9cm?! When I was just 2cm ?! Our baby would be arriving much sooner than we thought!

It's now time to head to the birthing room. Tay knows that he can bolus the epidural with some potent drugs to make my labor pain free, but he also knows that if he does that, I will not be able to push effectively and put myself at a higher risk for a C-Section (since baby is measuring big.) While the nurses and doctors set the room up, I was still having intense contractions with unbearable back pain. Pain that I'd never felt before, nor that I could ever imagine. I realized at that point that I HAD to pee before we started pushing or I would end up peeing on the doctor (pretty sure I did that anyway, sorry!)...I was past the point of walking to the restroom, so my dear sweet Tay (God I love him so) grabs a bed pan, holds it under me while I'm on the labor bed squatting(thank God there are not pictures of that!)...My husband is a saint.

Let me say this, labor and delivery without a urinary catheter is AMAZING. That is all. Once I had relieved myself, we started to try various pushing positions to bring the baby down and also relieve the immense back pain that came with each contraction. The one that worked the best was sitting up, legs in stirrups and sort of watching the action, but I kept my eyes closed because I was trying to focus on getting baby here. Doctor suggests reclining a bit and grabbing at handlebars placed on the bed to see if this position was more effective; it is, but now the back pain is amplified to a point I didn't know existed. This entire time, I'm screaming "I can't do this" or "Tay, this hurts" or "Tay help" or just plain moaning and screaming in general and my sweet doctor says, " not so much noise now, let's focus on pushing. If you are screaming, then you aren't focused on pushing and you won't make any progress."  Every push hurt. But instead of focusing on the hurt, I tried to focus on the baby and the pain means progress...pain means progress.

At one point, I screamed "JUST GET IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I kept saying, "I can't do this." Tay would say, "Yes you can! You are doing great. You've got this." I begged and begged Tay to take the pain away, he said we were almost there. I believed him and trusted my doctor and nurses.

At this point, my doctor says that if I push through the back pain, the baby will descend and the pain in my back will go away. What? Why didn't he say this earlier? Okay then! This motivates me beyond any imaginable motivation. I started pushing more effectively and suddenly felt the baby slip even further down the birth canal and the horrific back pain subsides into a pain similar to a backache associated with period pain...totally manageable! That's when I started to feel the intense pressure in my bottom and lady bits and pushing became much easier.  I could feel the baby "knocking on the door" so to say and I could feel my doctor manually helping me stretch to accommodate baby and I could feel the progress I was making. Baby's head kept knocking on the door and I kept pushing harder and harder just to get some relief...at that point, I felt baby's head slowly emerge and Tay said, "oh my God, this baby has the fattest cheeks!" (And that's why the back pain was so bad - baby was born sunny side up.) And everyone commented that this was the fattest baby they had seen. Hey guys, I'm not done delivering yet...stop saying it's the fattest baby you've ever seen and let's deliver these shoulders!

And after the head was out, I had one more good push and baby was out! And our nurse screams, "oh my gosh, he's peeing!! Whoops, it's a boy y'all!" That was the greatest moment ever. Once baby was placed on my stomach, the cord was clamped and Tay cut the cord, and then I delivered the placenta. And it felt weird. Squishy. Weird.

And just like that, we had another son! He arrived at 8:55AM after approximately 35 minutes of pushing. The hardest working 35 minutes of my life, but oh so worth it.

After sweet Shep was suctioned out, we headed over to the nursery to find out just how big this baby was. He was measured and weighed 3 different times just to make sure we got an accurate reading. My baby boy that I somehow delivered vaginally without pain meds weighed in at 10 pounds, 9 ounces and 22.25 inches long. I birthed a toddler!

And since I LOVE to indulge the TMI side of everyone. I know what you're thinking. You vaginally delivered a 10 plus pound baby...you must be in constant pain and be stitched up beyond belief. I'm here to say that NEITHER is true! With Henry's birth (induction) an episiotomy was completely necessary because he needed to be born quickly, but this time, things were different. Shep wasn't in distress and I pushed when I wanted and as fast or as slow as I wanted. Also, what helped immensely was my doctor. He used his hands and manually helped me open up and gave me a gentle massage to stretch the tissue for baby Shep's birth. It was the strangest feeling, but I am so grateful for it. A lot of doctors like to make unnecessary cuts instead of taking the time and helping the tissue stretch, like it's made to do. After Henry's delivery, I took pain meds every 4 hours for a week as directed by my OB. With Shep's birth? I haven't taken anything. Not even a little over the counter pain relief. Thanks to the amazing doctor (whose praises I will NEVER stop singing) I have a really small tear that he stitched up in no time and feel great.

I couldn't have asked for a better person to deliver our son. Can we talk about his smile? :)

My husband rocks. And is a saint, but don't you dare tell him I said that!

My new baby boy.

Exhausted. Excited. Thankful it was over.

Look how HUGE those cheeks are!

It's a horrible picture, but I'm thankful for it...it captures the emotion perfectly.

After Shep's grand arrival, we went back to our room and had some time alone, just the three of us. Tay then sent a mass text to everyone letting them know we had a baby! And that we would announce the sex and name once everyone made it to the hospital. Having those few hours alone before being bombarded with family was completely worth it. It also gave me time to put on some make-up; some much needed I'd cried it all off pushing out a toddler and looked HORRIBLE. With swollen eyes.

I told Tay I NEEDED a breastfeeding picture. He obliged and took two. Nursing Henry was such a struggle...this time hasn't been without its challenges, but we are fighting through them and making it happen! And we still believe that FED IS BEST.

Those sweet cheeks

Being in the hospital is hard on daddy's too!

Tanning!

And I know you're wondering how Henry is reacting to the new addition? Here you go:

 He's slowly warming to the idea of being a big brother...we are taking it ONE DAY AT A TIME.

Since we don't find out the sex of our babies beforehand, naming them is a bit of a challenge. We always have two boy names and two girl names picked out...we believe that babies should be named after you see them. Of our two boy names, the other name just didn't "fit" this guy. The other name is too proper, Shepherd James or Shep seemed to fit him. Our girl names still remain unchanged and one day we may get to use them...maybe!

James is a name that I have always loved, Tay has always been on the fence about it. When we were figuring out our boy names, he said, you get the middle name. Completely. It is your choice. We used Wallace for Henry's middle name, so you get to decide this baby's middle name. And James was a no-brainer. It was my grandfather's name and it's also my twins real name: James Andrew. Tay agreed. And then the Shepherd. We chose the name for 2 reasons: we think he'll be the kid in our family to wrangle or herd his siblings (the level headed one who tries to do the right thing) and also based on a book I read years ago, think possibly high school Senior and this book and this name stuck out. I'm just thankful that Tay agreed!

In some weird way it all worked out. We had planned on an unmedicated delivery, then after hours of no progress, decided to get the epidural, and it didn't work...in the long run, we got the labor and delivery we wanted with the sweetest biggest baby we could have ever imagined.  And my dear sweet husband is still in the dog house for telling me a few days prior to delivery, "you have a really low pain tolerance." Next time, he'll be the one that is pregnant for 10 months and gives birth :)