5 years ago tonight...

I was in labor at Denton Regional Medical Center...the following is Seth's version of Ethan's birth that he wrote up the day after Ethan was born. I still love to read this through his words...hope you enjoy

Here is the time table as best as I can remember it:

Monday	11:18am	I get a call at work from Jessica's Spa telling me that she has gone into labor. Jessica's friend, who is a massage therapist, was pushing on some points that are supposed to induce labor... Well, it works. - I drove straight home to get the additional items, not in Jessica's car.
	12:25pm	I get home and gather the car seat, Ipod, etc.. and the spa calls and tells me that her labor has progressed quicker than expected, so I call Jessica's mom who was near by to pick her up from the spa and drive her home. (Contractions were still 10minutes apart, just more intense)
	1:00pm	Jessica's mom gets to the spa and prepares Jessica for her road trip, which was still supposed to be home at this time since the contractions were closer but not close enough to go to the hospital. (I get some Subway for Lunch.)
	1:25pm	Jessica and her mom leave the hospital and Jessica's contractions are now 4-5 minutes apart, so we change plans and decide to meet at the Hospital. I call the doctors office to inform them and head up to the DRMC with items in the van.
	2:00pm	Jessica arrives and I escort her to the labor and delivery floor and they check us into room 3 and begin to hook up the monitors. Her contractions decide to fizzle during this process and end up at 10 minutes apart so she is ordered to walk around for an hour.
	3:00pm	Tired from walking, we return to the room and they hook her back up to the monitors. Her contractions are now back to about 5 minutes apart. At this point it is decided that instead of sending her home, they will just bump up our schedule since we were supposed to check in at 8pm that night for inducement. So an order is placed for some Cervidil.
	4:00pm	The Cervidil is applied and Jessica is determined to be at 1cm at that time. Cervidil softens the cervix, but also has a tendency to induce labor as well. After it is applied, we see Jessica's contractions get closer and longer and her friend from the spa shows up to coach her and massage her pressure points during this time.
	10:00pm	We all get our hopes up because Jessica's contractions are 7 minutes long and about 1 minute apart, so we ask the nurses if they can check her. They measure her at only 2cm and barely that. The pitocin is scheduled to begin at Midnight, so we help Jessica though these contractions and they also allow her to take a hot shower to help cope with the pain.
	12:00pm	Jessica is measured at 2.5 cm and the Pitocin is administered. You have to measure at 4 cm before they can administer the Epidural. With Pitocin, you barely get any rest between contractions and they come fast and hard. For the next 2 hours, Jessica goes through the worst exercise of an onslaught of contractions. Jessica's mom and myself help her though the contractions and her dad charts them, since our TOCO monitor (supposed to monitor contractions) wasn't working properly.
Tuesday	2:00am	Jessica is measured at 5 cm (Hallelujah chorus can be heard) so the epidural is ordered. The person who administers it, is on call (not on site) and arrives 45 minutes later with his cart of goodies. Jessica looks at him and says "I love you" before going into another contraction.
	3:00am	The epidural is finally hooked up and Jessica is measured at 8cm. We now help Jessica through a couple more contractions as the epidural kicks in and finally we decide that we can get some sleep.
	4:00am	Jessica finally falls asleep. I got the benefit of sleeping on a pull out cot that was equivalent to a napkin on top of monkey bars.
	6:30am	All the nurses come in to check vitals, tell us that our Doctor will be there at 7:30 to check for dilation and possibly break Jessica's water.
	7:45am	Dr Reeves, checks Jessica at a 9.5cm and breaks her water. We then get to wait for Jessica to reach 10cm which happens at 8:30am.
	8:30am	The nurse checks Jessica, and she is at 10cm, so they begin to have Jessica push little Ethan down. The next three hours are a physical and emotional trial that makes it hard to believe that people have kids anymore. I watched my wife push so hard that veins would pop out of her forehead and eyelids and she even popped some vessels in her eyes. I gained a huge amount of respect for her that day. I think every husband should be by his wife's side through this process. I now understand what it takes for a child to be born and I understand that a mother will do everything it takes for her child.
	11:25am	They only allow you 3 hours of pushing before they resort to forceps and at 5 minutes till that threshold in our case, little Ethan came into this world as Jessica's mother and I watched him take his first breath through our tears of joy. The nurses then placed him on Jessica's chest as I cut the umbilical cord. As Jessica welcomed him, you could see his eyes looking for his mothers voice that he has heard for the last 9-10 months.
Thursday	2:00pm	We finally check out of the hospital which was a shame since the food was so great. They ended up keeping us the extra day, so they could monitor Jessica's healing since she had a 3rd degree tear. (Most women only suffer a first degree, but Jessica is an overachiever) We packed up everything and drove home to begin our new life together as a family. We have learned so much these last couple of days and we will continue to learn as his and our lives progress. We want to thank all of our family, friends and God, as none of this would have been possible with out everyone's help, support and prayers. I will be putting together a video, so check back in a couple of weeks to see if I have it done. I will also be adding more pictures soon.