Baby Watt is here!
Grady John Watt arrived today at 3:40pm after a short, (intense!) labour. He weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces at birth and was 21.5 inches long.
My water broke this morning at 5am. I managed to stay in bed and try to relax until about 6am. Ryder and I went for a walk at 9am. When we got home, my friend Alysha, was here to keep me company since Sandy had an "important" golf match this morning! Contractions were about 20 minutes apart until 11am when they really picked up in intensity and came about 5-7 minutes apart. They were painful but I was managing.
Thank goodness Sandy decided to come home from golfing about this time! (He'd been calling to check in every four holes). The midwives arrived shortly after Sandy and checked me. I was 3cm dilated and things seemed to be progressing well. I spent the next 3 hours alternating between leaning on the counter in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, and standing in the shower. It was just Sandy and I in the bathroom, but the midwives would come in every 30 minutes and check the baby's heartbeat. I can definitely say that this time period was very intense. I was trying to focus and breath deeply but there were a few times when I totally lost it and just started screaming from the pain. Sandy and the midwives would calm me down and we'd start all over again with the next contraction. :)
They checked me again at 3pm and I was 8 cm dilated! Thank goodness because if they had said that I was any less, I definitely would have wanted to just give up. It turned into a bit of mad dash to get to the hospital. I actually started pushing on the front lawn as I was getting into the car! I wasn't trying to but I just couldn't help it! Sandy set a land speed record getting us there with the midwives right behind us in their car.
I pushed the in the hospital parking lot, in the elevator, and then we finally made it to our room. I immediately ripped off all my clothes (I was so hot!) and started to get to work pushing. I started in a squatting position, then was on all fours, then on my side, then I found my "groove" on my back kind of half sitting up.
Pushing actually felt pretty good in an extremely painful kind of way! Sandy was amazing at encouraging me and stayed right with me the whole time. When I talked to my Mom this morning, she told me that when she was having me, she didn't want to push properly because it hurt so much and it took a lot longer. I did not want this to take a long time, so I was pushing with everything I had and 40 minutes later, little Grady was born!
They put him on my chest right away .... what an amazing feeling! They had Sandy look and he said, "It's a boy!". We cried and hugged and just stared at him with awe and I'm know that we both fell in love right away.
Sandy took Grady out to meet the crew in the waiting room while I had a few stitches and just relaxed. We spent 3 hours in the hospital getting cleaned up and practicing breastfeeding. They discharged us at 7:30pm and we are home now. Heather and RonaLee are here - they have made a ton of food to freeze and cleaned up the house for us - what a blessing!
We feel incredibly fortunate to have our little baby here with us. We will keep you all updated as things happen around here. Lots of love to our amazing family and friends who have been such a great support.
Love Allison, Sandy, Ryder, and Grady Watt
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