Welcome Owen Bryce!

The night before I went into labor, Darin thought I should take a belly shot, not knowing this was his last night in the womb! 38 1/2 weeks!

Well, I have to say, he must be a child with his own mind. He must have heard me brag to everyone that my kids come on their due dates (because the other two did) and he decided to change things up! Funny thing, my mom stopped by about an hour before my water broke, so when I called her a few hours later, we just had to laugh that she would be coming back!

Yep, my water broke (seems to be the trend to get me to the hospital). I had a check up that day and contractions were registering on the monitors but nothing painful or alarming. My back had been hurting all day, but no biggie (ummm, back labor Nada? …never crossed my mind!) I waited until almost 5:00 to call Darin (had to finish some laundry and dishes and give him time to hopefully finish up with his patient load). I tried to calmly have him head home, but I hear he just left everything and headed out the door. Silly guy!

We got to the hospital about 6, got checked- water definitely broke. Settled into the birth room and started actually paying attention to contractions. They went ahead and gave me some Pitocin to get them closer together. And they got closer and more intense. The anesthesiologist came around 9 and gave me an epidural. Of course, like with the others, it worked really well with my right leg, but I could still REALLY feel the contractions. The good doctor figured I was progressing faster than the medicine was dosing. A little before 10 pm, he came back and gave me an extra shot of something—something good. Everything numbed, and my right leg was as dead as could be. So when Dr. Riley came in to check me Darin and I were laughing at how I couldn’t feel anything in my right leg (and he was pinching and poking) and she said, oh its time, he’s crowning!

After 3 or 4 minutes of pushing, I had a beautiful, healthy, baby boy cradled in my arms. He cried of course, but calmed right down as I held him close and talked to him. I couldn’t believe he was finally here!

Of course, everyone asked his name, but we just hadn’t decided yet. But that’s okay. Baby Boy Payne was born January 9th at 10:23 pm. He weighed in at 6 lbs 5 oz and about 19 inches long. He was adorable.

This lighter hair with reddish tones surprised us! The others were dark, dark, dark-headed …once again telling me that this little guy will do things his way! The next few hours were crazy with all the excitement and joy keeping us going into the wee hours of the morning. I think we finally slept a bit, and of course on and off the next day. Every time I would wake up, Darin would ask “what are we going to name this baby?”

Grandma brought the kids over before school and they were quite shy.