The Powell Crew!: He's Here!

We are ecstatic to announce that our little man has made his grand entrance! What started out as a very scary night, ended in a very happy afternoon.

I went to bed at about 10:30 on Tuesday night. I was feeling really off all day, but I didn't think too much of it other than just being really tired from being pregnant and chasing Kiley around all day. At about 11:30, I thought my water broke. I got really excited and literally jumped out of bed. When I looked down, I noticed blood. That is when the panic set in. I started pacing back and forth, and my first instinct was to call someone to come and stay with Kiley. So I called Auntie Melodie and told her I was bleeding and she needed to come over now. I hung and noticed that there was more blood, so I started yelling for Joey, who has upstairs watching a hockey game. By now, poor Kiley had woken up and had no idea what was going on. We were going to get in the car and go the hospital and just have Mel meet us there, but instead I told Joey to call 911. I wasn't feeling any pain, just a lot of bleeding, and I couldn't feel the baby move.

The paramedics came about 5-10 minutes after we called, and took me to the hospital. The entire time in the ambulance I kept thinking something was terribly, terribly wrong and I kept praying that he would move or kick or hiccup.

When we got to the hospital, Mel was already there and took Kiley and Joey went to Labor and Delivery with me. The nurse checked me and hooked me up to a monitor. When I heard the baby's heartbeat, I felt the biggest relief of my life. He looked really good, had no problems with his heart rate, so they just checked me in and said we would wait and see how I progressed through the night.

I was planning on a natural birth, at least no epidural, but my nerves were really getting to me and I was progressing pretty quickly and ended up getting some drugs so that I could sleep.

Around 7am, the nurse broke my water. A little while later, I ended up getting an epidural, which hurt way worse than it did with Kiley and never really worked completely. Joey went home to shower and change and check in on Kiley around 10 am, and while he was gone I went from 5cm to 7cm in about an hour, then from 7cm to 9cm in another hour. I called him and told him to get back asap...or he might be missing out on the birth of our son. I got to 10cm shortly after got back, and started pushing a little after 1pm.

At 1:30pm on March 25, 2009 (36 weeks, 5 days), Will Evan Powell was born. He weighed 7 lbs., 13 oz. and measured 19 in. In comparison to his big sister, he weighed 1.1 lbs. more, and was .75 in. longer. He has a ton of dark hair, and beautiful blue eyes, just like Kiley.

So my "birth plan" went completely out the window. I really wanted to labor at home as long as possible, and avoid the epidural, but when it comes to these things, you really have to be flexible. I certainly didn't plan on making my entrance to L&D in an ambulance, but at least we have in interesting story to tell. :)

Oh, and the cause of the bleeding was a minor placenta tear. I guess that explains why I felt so crappy all day. Thinking about it now, I am very fortunate it wasn't a full rupture and that it didn't happen when I was out somewhere by myself with Kiley.

As for our other baby, she loves being a big sister. All she talks about is her baby brother, and that she loves him and that she will share her toys with him and read to him. Whenever he cries, she rushes over and says, "It's okay brother, don't cry. It's okay." When you ask her if she loves her brother, she says, "I love my Will."

So that is Will's birth story. Thank God for happy endings.