Our Version of a Fairy Tale: quinn reiter

On November 15th at 7:12 pm, the hubs and I welcomed our sweet baby boy Quinn Reiter into the world. He weighed 7lbs 10oz and was 21 inches long. Below is his birth story.

The night before was spent preparing for his arrival. The house was cleaned top to bottom making sure every dish was put away and all laundry was washed. I wanted to be able to come home to a straight house. Of course we stayed up fairly late. Neither of us could go to bed considering how excited/nervous we were (maybe it was just me who was nervous).

The alarm went off at 4 am and I woke up with butterflies in my stomach. After a quick shower, I managed to get down a banana and I had the hubs take one last bump picture in front of the Christmas tree.

We also snapped one last picture of just the two of us before heading to the hospital. On the way the hubs decided he wanted a chicken biscuit for breakfast, but we couldn't find a McDonald's that was open before 6 am. We went by two different ones too.

We got to the hospital at 5:30 and were immediately put in a room. After changing into the lovely and stylish gown, the nurse started my IV and I got into bed to be hooked up. I had two sensors around my belly. One measured when I was having a contraction and the other kept track of Quinn's heartbeat. Then I had the IV in my right arm and the blood pressure cuff around the left arm. Let's just say going to the bathroom was quite the production!

At that point I told Danny to go get himself some breakfast. I'm such a good wife ha! We spent the first couple of hours watching Home Improvement and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The contractions were coming on consistently but not too terribly painful.

Around 9 am the doctor came in to check me and broke my water. There was no going back now! Contractions were coming on strong at that point. I did my best to breath through everything and to stay calm. I kept telling myself what my friend Allison said, "I can do anything for a minute."

My mom had arrived at the hospital at that point and the three of us watched tv while I labored on. Around 11 the nurse could tell I was starting to really hurt and offered a pain medication to take the edge off. As she put it in my IV she said I would still feel the contractions but I would feel a little light headed and wouldn't care as much. She looked at me and asked if I felt anything yet and I was responding, "No, nothing yet...oh there it is!" I instantly felt like I had just consumed 3 glasses of wine.

An hour and a half later and it was time to call in the big guns. I was ready for the epidural. I applaud the women who have drug free births but goodness I'll never be one of them. After that point we just waited it out. I took a nap and the biggest pain I felt were hunger pains. I certainly was hungry!

I did have to be put on oxygen to keep Quinn's heart beat up, but that was the worst of it. At one point I looked at the hubs and asked, "so do you still think I'm sexy." Everyone seems to get a kick out of that.

Danny's mom came to the hospital after her classes that morning and everyone chit chatted while we waited.

At 5:30 I was only 6 cm along so I was trying to tell everyone to go get dinner. The nurse predicted it would be nearly 9 pm before I was ready to push. An hour later everyone was about to leave when the doctor came in and decided to check me. The nurse jokingly said, "come on 9 cm" and the hubs replied, "no, we need to wish for 10!" Wouldn't you know the doctor looked up and said, "well you're at 10 so it's time to push." The hubs and I almost thought he was joking!

Forty five minutes later our sweet boy came into the world. It was a very surreal experience. Both the hubs and my mom were there cheering me on while our nurse Jill cracked jokes. I was so appreciative of the laughter and lightheartedness. I would have had the hardest time otherwise.

Waiting to hold my bundle of joy

I can't believe I'm a mommy

After things had calmed down my mom went out and brought back Subway. It was by far the best sub I've ever had haha. Since I wasn't allowed to eat or drink, I think I also sucked down 3 ginger ales and a water in record time. I didn't care that I would have to get up and use the bathroom, everything tasted so delicious!

I was able to nurse for the very first time before we were moved to the recovery room. Luckily he latched on right away and nursed for 10 minutes on each side. After finally settling into our room (which was the size of a walk in closet lol), we started going through all the sweet sentiments sent by family and friends through texts and facebook.

It was quite the exhausting day, but it just flew by for me. I never thought 12 hours of labor could go so quickly. The next day brought on lots of love from lots of visitors.