He's Here!!

Drake Mason Wasemiller was born 10 days early on Friday July 25th at 12:09 am weighing 7 lbs 5 oz and measuring 21 inches long. He is gorgeous and looks just like his daddy!



































Drake's birth story: July 24th started off like any other day during the end of my pregnancy-I was exhausted, huge, and my back was killing me. The only difference was that today would be the day that I would go into labor. I was in my 38th week (38 weeks and 3 days pregnant to be exact) and I knew that something was a little different-I could hardly walk (well waddle because I hadn't been "walking" in weeks). I thought to myself "I'm not going to be able to work much longer if it's going to be like this".
I went home for lunch to eat with my mom and by that time my back was feeling progressively worse, I went back to work thinking that I might have to come home a little early.
At around 1:00 pm, the pain in my back was coming and going in sort of a pattern, so I realized that I was having back contractions. By about 2:00 pm, the contractions started to get worse so I called Mom to come and get me. By the time I got to the house-I was in terrible pain. Mom was timing my contractions, they were coming every 3 minutes and lasting 30 seconds. Since I had never done this before I was in total denial that I was in labor and I was completely against calling the hospital for fear that I would get there and they would just send me home. But, after about 30 more minutes of horrific back pain and of my mom begging me to, I agreed to call the doctor. Dr. McClintock was out of town so I called to speak to one of her partners, Dr. Ryder-who had just seen me on Tuesday-and of course she was already out of the office. They connected me with yet another doctor in the practice, Dr. Ruk. He was great on the phone and told me that he would tell the hospital that I was coming in. He made me feel better by telling me that if I wasn't in labor they would just send me home, but if I was-I would be meeting my baby soon! I called David and told him to hurry home that I thought this might be it. After what seemed like forever, he finally arrived-and proceeded to pack his bag. Next time I know that packing David's bag is just as important as packing mine and the baby's, ours had been packed for weeks and were already loaded in the car ready to go. He finally got everything together and we were on our way.
The drive to Medical City Hospital was miserable. By this time it was 4:30 pm, which is the beginning of rush hour in Dallas. The "quickest" routes were totally backed up-so we took the back roads. It only took about 30 minutes to get there, but it seemed like hours. I was experiencing terrible back labor and just wanted some relief FAST.
We finally arrived and were taken to a room, where I changed into a gown and was hooked up to monitors to see if I was in "active" labor and if they would let me stay. At this point my contractions were coming every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes and I vowed to myself that if they didn't keep me and administer pain medicine ASAP that I might kill someone. The nurse checked me, I was 3.5-4 cm and she told me that she would be surprised if they sent me home. She called Dr. Ruk and he agreed to let me stay, which meant that I would be getting an epidural soon-yay! I asked the nurse the ETA on the epi and she told me that it would only be about 20 minutes. 25 minutes later, the hero of the day, Dr. Hart came in and gave me the epidural-complete with a "happy button" for a shot of medicine whenever I started to feel anything. The epidural was amazing. I have a whole new respect for those women who are brave enough to attempt childbirth without it!
Neither Dr. Ryder or Dr. Ruk were on call that night, so yet another doctor from Dr. McClintock's practice-Dr Campbell came in to let me know that she would be my delivering doctor. She was really great and practiced under my doctor at her internship in Florida. My new l & d nurse Brandi was incredible and used to be my doctor's practice nurse, so at least Dr. McClintock was there in spirit!
At 7 pm my nurse came in to check me and I was at a 7. So in the beginning things were moving along very quickly, but when they came back at 10 pm, I had only progressed a little more to an 8.5. At this point they decided to break my water and administer pitocin to get things moving again. I am lucky that I had an epidural because I can tell you that pitocin is super strong, after they gave it to me, there was a small area on the front of my stomach where I started to feel contractions. I pushed my happy button about 10 times and it finally went away. Lucky for me, I pushed the happy button at the right time, because when they checked me at 11:30, I was at a 10 and ready to start pushing.
This was the part that I was most afraid of about labor. I had only been given a 10% chance to deliver naturally because of a narrow pelvis-so I thought that all of my effort would just end up in a c-section. At this point we also knew that Drake was face up, so they let me know that even 2nd time mothers usually push for 2 hours with babies that are positioned this way. It looked like I was in for a lot of work.
Pushing was much harder than I expected. I thought that my head was going to explode, or that I might give myself a brain aneurysm. After a few pushes, I knew that I absolutely wouldn't and couldn't push for long, and my determination turned me into a great pusher. I started pushing at 11:55 pm and at 12:09 am after only 14 minutes of pushing, Drake Mason Wasemiller was born!
Seeing him across the delivery room was the most surreal moment that I have ever experienced. David was the first one to hold him and then my mom. I was shaking uncontrollably from the labor and the medication, so it was about 20 minutes before I trusted myself with him. When I held him for the first time, I knew that he was meant to be ours. He truly is a miracle and we are so blessed to have him in our lives.