Ezra Boston Lawrence's B-Day ( FYI this is a super long post)

        At my 36 week prego check with little Ezra, my OB informed me that I was already 2 cm dilated and 80 percent effaced. She asked if I was having contractions and I informed her that I was, pretty consistently. She was in shock and told me that she didn't think she would see me the following week for my appointment. She also advised me to stop my daily walk, because she didn't want that to cause me to go into labor any earlier. This same conversation pretty much happened every single week for me up until I was 39 weeks, when I forced my OB to give me an induction date. I was having contractions everyday, but they were so inconsistent. As soon as I felt like it was time to go to Labor and Delivery (because my contractions were strong and consistent), they would stop. I actually went into L & D and was sent home 4 times before actually having little Ezra, which was extremely embarrassing to say the least.

       By my 39 week appointment, I was 6 cm dilated and my OB was astounded that I was still pregnant. She advised me to go into L&D if I had contractions consistently for more than 30 min. She also stripped my membrane, in hopes that it would finally push me into active labor. 12 hours later, I started to have consistent contractions for 2 hours, so I finally convinced Gabe that this time it was the real deal, and we wouldn't be sent home AGAIN.

       We got to L&D at 5am on Saturday morning. The nurse started me on pitocin right away, which I thought was odd, because I thought procedure was to break your water in hopes of progressing naturally first. I'm not a nurse, so I just went with it. After 5 hours, my contractions were no longer consistent, and I hadn't dilated any further. I was so frustrated! I asked the nurse if we could try breaking my water, but she said, "No, we want to wait until your contractions are consistent," which still made no sense to us, but again, we just went with it. Gabe and I weren't the biggest fans of that particular nurse, but everyone else was great!

       Once the doctor came in to talk to me about maybe having to have a c-section if my contractions didn't become consistent, I asked if we could try breaking my water. The doctor agreed that it was a good idea. She was actually surprised that hadn't already been done. Thirty minutes after they broke my water, I started to feel a lot of pressure. I asked the nurse (yes, that same nurse) when they would check me again, because I was feeling a lot of pressure. She said not for another 2 hours. After trying to convince her that I needed to be checked sooner, I finally had to tell her that I felt like I really really needed to push. This finally got her attention, so she checked me right away. I was at a 10, and she could see Ezra's head already. She quickly got the doctor back to our room, and I only had to push for 10 min and our little man came out screaming his little heart out.

        Throughout my pregnancy, I had been trying to convince my OB and all the doctors I interacted with at Labor and Delivery that Ezra was going to be big like his sister. Everyone told me they really didn't think so, even my ultrasound showed him only measuring to be about 7 pounds. Well, as soon as he came out, all of the nurses and the doctor were like "Wahoo, he's huge, we've got to weigh him right away!" Ha. He weighed 9 lb 12 oz, exactly the same as his sister.

       Once he was weighed, and we finally got him to calm down, Gabe and I got to spend a good hour just enjoying meeting our son. We discussed how he didn't look just like Anni and Gabe, which was a very big surprise. We also spoke about how much Anni was going to love him and how perfect he was. My pregnancy with Ezra was really rough compared to my pregnancy with Anniston, but the delivery was a cake walk compared to mine with Anni, and I'm so thankful for that and our healthy baby boy!