New Year, New Baby

We have had a busy and exciting new year so far. We kicked off the new year with the birth of our baby boy Tristan Maximus Smith. We headed to the hospital at 2:30am on the 31st of December and at 1:57am on Jan 1st Tristan was born! Here is the story of how it happened :

On December 30th I woke up feeling normal but tired. I started having contractions off and on all day but nothing consistent. That night my contractions started coming every ten minutes apart and were getting painful, but not enough to go to the hospital. I went upstairs and took a shower and laid down to read a book. Nothing happened. I came downstairs at about 2:00am and told my husband I was going to bed and as soon as I laid down and started to relax the contractions started coming really close together and very painful! I came down the stairs and told Jake it was time to go. We packed our car up and headed out to UNC and called our parents to let them know the first grandchild was on the way! I was 4cm dilated when the doctor checked me at the hospital so they checked us into a labor and delivery room, got me started on the iv and gave me morphine for the pain so I could sleep. The next day not too much had changed. I wasn't dilating much at all so the doctors broke my water and gave me pitocin to get things going. After my water was broken I got an epidural which was a life saver! Even with the pitocin and breaking of my water things progressed very slowly. The baby started to have some drops in heart rate, but the doctors gave me oxygen and turned me different directions which seemed to help. At about 12:30 my nurse let me know it was time to start pushing and about an hour later Tristan was born! He was the first baby to be born at UNC in 2011. Tristan had some bruising and had to have his lungs suctioned out because he had swallowed some meconium which happened because he was born after his due date and the labor took so long. But, everything worked out and I had no problems other than a minor inside tear which the doctor gave me three stitches for. We stayed in the hospital for two days and then brought our precious little boy home. It was a great new years and even though we missed the new years celebrations and dropping of the ball, I will always remember 2011 as the being the best new years ever!