Benson Cole Heaton Arrived

He is here! And as sweet and cute as ever. I was warned, 3 is the hardest. I agree. But I think for us the hardest part is finding a safe place for Benson to be is the biggest challenge. A certain little someone (little miss missey), likes to "play" with Benson a little too much. With nursing every 2.5 seconds me and the baby have been locked upstairs pretty much all week. I don't know what I would have done without my mom! She has been my saving grace with me being pretty much non existent. But overall the kids have been so great! The kids don't seem to be affected too much by the new adjustment.

We didn't have a name set for the baby ahead of his arrival. We knew we like Cole and Benson. Had it been a girl we would have named her Avery. Ryan had a few others he liked, me not so much. I always wanted to name one of our boys Cole and so I kind of figured that would be his name, but never committed. In the hospital we kept playing back and forth with the names to see if one would stick. I wanted it to be Cole so badly, and every time we called him Cole it just didn't fit. He looked like a Benson. So we went with it, and we love it.

The Arrival Story :)

On Monday June 4th, at my dr appt I was dilated 3-4cm. On Wednesday morning I had started spotting (aahem, [whispering] mucus plug), that carried through Thursday. Thursday evening I started to get a little nervous that maybe the blood was a little uncommon. So we put the kids to bed, and I told Ryan I was going to just run over to the hospital to have them check it really fast and that I'd be back. I got to the hospital around 10:15pm. Triage was full so they started setting me up in a room (same room I had Sadie in). I quickly reassured them I didn't need a room, just someone to check the bleeding. They quickly assured me that they will but they just wanted to monitor the heart rate/contractions as well. I told them Dr. Swainston is out of town and to check very carefully because I didn't want to get put into labor by accident. They said the bleeding was normal, BUT I was contracting every 4 minutes and dilate to 4cm. I had no idea, but I kept asking if I could just go home since the contractions weren't bothering me. They called Dr. Martin (on call for Swainston). He said I needed to stay just 1 hour, and then be rechecked. 1 hour later I was dilated to 5cm! I could feel a little tightening at each contraction, but nothing big. So I considered going home. The nurse thought I was silly for wanting to go home dilated at 5cm. So I thought about it for a bit, and since I was strep b positive I decided I better stay and get the antibiotics. I called Ryan around 12:45am and told him that I wasn't going anywhere and to come on over, we're having baby :). I called my friend Kaydee and she went over to my house and slept there to be there when the kids woke up.

Ryan got to the hospital around 2am. Around 2:13am they broke my water. Right after that they ordered up my epidural at 2:30am. The anesthesiologist was the same guy that did mine last time. He is spot on with his epidurals, maybe a little too good! I was so numb I couldn't feel a thing from my waist down. That is the most unnerving feeling to me. It gave me a little anxiety (okay a lot, but I tried so hard to ignore it). Around 5:15am I was at a 10. They called Dr. Martin, he was there around 5:30 scrubbed up and caught the baby after just about 5 or 10 pushes. At 5:43am on June 8th Benson was born 6lb 9oz (my biggest baby by an oz) 20 inches long. It was so fun not knowing the gender of the baby! It made the mood in the delivery room a lot of fun, and everyone was so excited to see what the baby was! Bonus: my good friend Laurie is a neonatal nurse at the hospital so she spent a lot of time with me that evening, prior to Ryan getting there. Also she was in the delivery room and took care of Benson as soon as he arrived.

Overall it was a super easy uneventful (in a good way) delivery. Other than the fact that I tried to leave the hospital in full blown labor dilated to 5cm :). I am sooo glad they talked me into staying.

We stayed in the hospital until late Sunday afternoon when all Benson's test came back clear. Getting to the hospital on Thursday and not leaving until Sunday was a little long, but boy I loved sending Benson to the nursery at night. We came home pretty well rested.

Recovery has been great! I felt really good, and within a day and was getting around really well. I am not sure what the difference was this time vs. the other 2 times. But I am grateful for a quick recovery, because now I have 3 little kiddos demanding my attention!