Playing the Waiting Game

8:30pm - All done! We have a 7.12 lbs baby boy! 21 inches long! Unfortunately, he looks like me . . . for his sake, I was hoping he'd look like Richelle! He has nice brown hair, and he's very alert - eyes wide open and a healthy set of lungs for crying!

7:50pm - The nurse says she's pretty much fully dilated now, and she's starting to feel pressure. In fact, the nurse just said we'll start pushing in 15 min!

7:30pm - Richelle is now dilated to an 8! She's moving pretty fast now! Looks like this baby may just make it before midnight after all! On a side note, we just found out that our friend Joy is here having her baby too! Very exciting!

6:15pm - Richelle is now dilated up to a 4, and her water broke. So now they've taken her off the Pitocin since things seem to be moving along just fine. We had a little bit of the scare when the baby's heart rate dropped pretty low for several minutes. It was right after she got the epidural (which dilates the blood vessels which causes a drop in blood-pressure) and she had some really strong contractions that lasted longer than usual. We had about 10 people in the room all doing different things to try to get the heart rate back up . . . they were starting to bring in stuff to do an emergency c-section when the baby's heart rate finally came back up to normal levels . . . so phew! We've been back to normal for about 45 minutes now, and her contractions are a lot more regular now too. So things seem to be moving along.

5:15pm - Good news! Richelle is now dilated to about 2 . . . she just got her epidural (which by-the-way, that was pretty crazy to watch!), and we've starting the pitocin. Hopefully things from here on out will start moving pretty quickly. Fingers-crossed!

4:oopm - Richelle is starting to be in a lot more pain, which the nurse is saying is a good sign that things are starting to progress. They've given her some pain killers, and in a few more hours they'll start the Pitocin.

2:00pm - Not much to report. The drugs they have her on to prepare her for the Pitocin have caused her to have a lot of minor-to-medium contractions (in fact they're cutting back on her dosage because of it), but she isn't really dilated yet. So we're still just waiting and waiting.

12:00pm - This morning at 6am we came into the hospital . . . finally. Not much is going on though. Right now we're just playing the waiting game while some of the prep-meds they gave Richelle do their stuff. They said they likely won't start the Pitocin until something like 6pm, which seems like a long ways away . . . especially since Richelle keeps trying to get me to give her food.