These Days: From the Beginning

These days and months with Mason are flying by! I guess the best place to start this blog is to go back and start from the beginning with the story of my pregnancy and Mason's birth.

Justin and I had been married four months. Everything was going great and we were loving married life, but I had baby fever! I guess it was contagious because Justin caught a small bout of it and agreed that I should stop taking the pill. A month later, on December 5th, we found out that we were pregnant (in a hotel room in Tampa for Dalton's Bowl Game......of all places). We were extremely excited but kept quiet......SOO hard to do! We wanted to wait a few months and make sure everything was okay before telling our family and friends. That only lasted a few weeks because we thought that an ultrasound picture would be the perfect Christmas present and way to tell our parents and rest of the family.

My pregnancy was great! I loved (almost) every minute of it! I even packed up my classroom and house and moved to a different town at 7 months pregnant. Mason Lane Snider was due on August 13, 2010 (Friday the 13th), but I never thought that I would make it to my due date. I guess that was just wishful thinking! It was a VERY HOT summer, and I thought that he was never going to come! I tried EVERYTHING that I had heard to do to get a baby to come......eat spicy food, exercise, bounce on a ball, and more.......none of it worked. But on Friday, August 13th at about 3:30 pm, my water broke......just like the doctor predicted. I called Justin and told him that I was pretty sure that my water had just broken and to come home. As soon as he pulled into the garage, we were backing out and on the way to the hospital in Spartanburg. (Our bags had been packed and the car had been loaded up for a few weeks because I was so sure that Mason was going to come early.)

We were pre-registered at the hospital, so I was checked in and lying on one of those oh-so-comfortable hospital beds in no time. A couple hours later, ALL of our family had arrived and my contractions were becoming stronger. Because my water had all ready broken, I couldn't get up and walk around like I had planned, but when my contractions were stronger and the pain was getting worse, I didn't want to walk around anymore. The week before he was due, I was already dilated 2 cm. I think they checked me around 6:30 and I was only 4 cm dilated. When they checked me again around 9:30, I was only 6 cm dilated and I was in a lot of pain since I had decided to go the natural route. I remember thinking that I had only dilated 4 cm in 6 hours, and I didn't think I could go 5 or 6 more hours without medicine. After talking it over with Justin, I decided to get some medicine through the IV to block out some of the pain. They said that it would only last about a hour and a half, and they were right!

This is the point where some details and time get fuzzy for me. I truly was in my own world...pretty oblivious to the world around me. I just remember that I kept asking if I could start pushing. I was thinking that if I could just go ahead and push him out, then I would stop hurting. Around midnight, I was FINALLY fully dilated and started pushing. Three hours later, he still wasn't out, I was completely exhausted, and in the worst pain yet. The doctor said that she thought he was turned the wrong way and that's why he wasn't coming out. She gave us the option of continuing to push for 30 more minutes and then a C-section if he still wasn't here or to go ahead and have a C-section. I chose the second option. AND at 3:41 am on Saturday, August 14th, our little miracle was born. He was 9 pounds, 3 ounces and 20 inches long. He was (and still is) the most precious thing we have ever seen, and he has helped us love more than we ever thought possible!