LINCOLN HAWKE MCWHORTER was born Friday, September 23rd 2011 at 6:24pm. He came two weeks early! Surprise! He weighed 6lbs 3oz and was 18 inches long. He has light brown hair and dark blue/gray eyes for now.
I wrote the following to my sister Melissa, who is in the MTC. It's my story of going into labor and giving birth. I thought I would just copy it because re-writing it seemed like a hassle. :)
Thursday all day I was totally miserable. I woke up and my lower abdomen was in a ton of pain. I could hardly lift my legs to even walk, let along get in and out of bed. I slept for a few hours and then got up and Sean and I went to the post office to mail you that little package and we went to Target and then ate at Texas Roadhouse. Luckily Sean wasn't working that night so we just came home and relaxed and then I went to bed. Of course I woke up like every 2 hours to pee during the night, and when I got up around 7am I realized that I was having contractions. It was fairly subtle though because they actually just feel like menstrual cramps that come and go in little waves. It would just get real painful for like 15 seconds, and then taper off. Then 5 min later it started again. They were already 5 minutes apart when I had a chance to start timing them. I told Sean and we just layed there and waited to see how long they would last. I went for about an ho
ur, no change. I got up, changed positions, no change. I already had an appointment with the Dr scheduled that afternoon, so I called them to see if there was a way I could come in the morning so they could check me and see what they thought was going on. We packed our bags for the hospital, got all the baby stuff, showered, and then headed to AF. I was still having contractions the whole time and they were only getting stronger. We got there and when the Dr examined me he realized I was almost 5cm dilated. You push at 10cm. So i was half way there! He decided to send me to the hospital! I was havin the baby!! It was kinda surreal when we got there cuz I was surprised to be going into labor 2 weeks early... but I knew that I couldn't be in pain like i was the day before for 2 weeks either so having the baby seemed like the better option!
We got to the room and they got me all hooked up to the IV etc by about 11am. I waited and labored without pain meds til 2pm when they gave me the epidural. That was amazing! It made me feel like I was more relaxed than I've ever been in my life. All the while my contractions were getting stronger---I just couldn't feel it. At 3 they broke my water, and then the contractions were even stronger. I was dilated to a 6 and they had me roll over on my side. Within 1 hour i was dilated to a 10. The nurse checked and said, "You're a 10! Do you want to push now, or wait a little bit?" haha... I was surprised, so I decided to wait about 30 minutes to mentally prepare myself to push this little guy out. I knew I could potentially be in the pushing stage for a few hours, so I was actually pretty nervous. She came back and I just decided to give it a go. So just with the nurse and Sean we waited for a contraction, they held my legs up and then I pushed with all my might 3 times each contraction. Surprisingly I was making progress really fast! The Dr came in and realized that his head was really close. I only pushed for about 45 minutes and then all of a sudden he popped right out! haha. I don't know exactly what happened... I mean I pushed real hard, but his head just came out like very suddenly. Sean and the Dr were both pretty surprised! haha. It was crazy to see him and realize that he was in my tummy. Of course he was covered in gunk... but having him out and finishing the labor process was really awesome! I felt a lot of love and just excitement/happiness to be able to see him finally.
They cleaned him up and then let me hold him. Sean got to hold him too obviously. Dad and Nate and McKayla and Sean's parents were all waiting outside. They left to grab food like right before I found out I had dilated to a 10 and by the time they came back he was born like 15 minutes later! It seemed real quick!
Sean went to the nursery with him and they got him all cleaned up and examined while the Dr's and nurses cleaned me up in the delivery room. Then everyone got to come in and meet him. McKayla was very excited obviously! Nate was funny cuz he wasn't sure he wanted to hold him, but I made him do it! :)
The first night he slept quite a bit. I was a little out of it from being tired and also being really sore, so I didn't end up sleeping too much. he had a hard time nursing at first too. Especially cuz there's not really much to get out anyways, so each day he's been getting better at eating as my milk is coming in. Sean had to finger feed him a lot the first 24 hours or so just with a little seringe. Saturday was a great day! We had visitors and just spent time with our little guy. The next day he already looked older! We just started to fall in love with him. We love his cute little cry and laugh at him cuz he's just so droopy and tired all the time!
We left the hospital Sunday late morning. We got home, got cleaned up, and then just rested for a bit until about 4 when we went back up to Highland to see the families. Last night he did pretty good. Slept quite a bit, but also got a little gassy and was awake and crying. But he's a good boy. He doesn't cry unless he's hungry, gassy, or getting his diaper changed. So far it's easy to make him happy.
Today was good too. I got about 4 hours of sleep straight from 5-9am while he slept and Sean stayed in his room with him. Sean's mom came over today to help clean up, do the laundry, and make us lunch. That was a lifesaver because I had obviously missed doing all the laundry over the weekend, and the downstairs was a little messy. She also watched him for a little over an hour while we took another nap--just prepping for tonight and getting less sleep possibly...
I'm loving it though! He is such a little sweetie. I think he kinda looks like us 4 as babies, but we'll see. I'll have to give him a couple months to decide who we think he's gonna look like. We're still not sure what color of eye's he will have--right now they are super dark grey/blue and apparently that color at birth can change to either brown or green or grey... or blue, but its less likely. I'm excited to see!
Anyways, that was a long story! :) Thanks for listening! :)
