Keith Asher Montague

He's arrived! Yay! I didn't have to be induced to get him here on time! Double Yay!! He waited for my mom to get here! Triple Yay!!! I only had to push once, maybe twice, to get him out! Quadruple Yay!!!!

Anyone want the whole story?

Sunday May 8: False labor begins and is rather intense at some points but never evens out into regular intervals.

Monday May 9: False labor wanes a bit as I go to work, picks up a little bit when I come home.

Tuesday May 10: False labor is pretty much gone, I go to work and continue to pray that my mom arrives on Wednesday night before this baby does.

Wednesday May 11: Braxton Hicks contractions all day but nothing really notable. Head to my midwife and find out that I'm 3cm dilated and 40% effaced. Get a nice visit with some friends and then off to the airport to pick up Mom. YAY!! She's here!

Thursday May 12: Walk a mile to the library and back: Ready to get this baby OUT!! Did some gardening with Mom and the boys. Start getting some more contractions a bit stronger but nothing really starts happening until dinner time. Meanwhile, Sam tells his boss that this is his last day at work before going into the Army. They have known for months so it really wasn't a surprise. In fact, they already cleared off his desk when he came in for work today. On Sam's way home from work, I tell him that I think the baby is coming tonight. Maybe it's just a gut feeling....or maybe it was the back pain that started coming with the irregular contractions.

When Sam gets home, my contractions start picking up in strength and speed. I lost my mucus plug around 6pm. Woot Woot! Bring on those contractions!

We start arranging everything for the boys to stay overnight and whatnot. Of course, after dinner, the contractions totally eased up and the boys are staying put for bed. After we put the boys down, we decided to go for a walk to try and get things going again. After talking with the neighbors for an hour, we go back home.

So I come in, flip on some Glee, and realize that my contractions are getting stronger as I'm watching it. Around 930pm they really start to get intense. Not exactly regular though. They ranged from 10 minutes apart to 3 min apart. But they were definitely getting stronger and I knew that I was going to have a baby before I went to sleep for the night.

We called Sam's parents around 1030pm to let them know that we needed them to come in and sleep here with the boys for the night. Around 11pm, I hop in the shower, in preparation for going to the hospital. Sam's parents come around 1130 and by about midnight we are on our way to Salt Lake Regional. I'm faithfully listening to my Hypnobabies tracks on my iPhone and mom is timing my contractions on Sam's watch. It was a relatively comfortable 45 min drive to the hospital as my contractions were about 7-9 minutes apart.

Once I got out of the car though, they came on so much faster. I had about 4 contractions from the emergency room to the labor and delivery desk. We got our room at about 1am and the nurse checked me at 115am. I was dilated to 4.5cm a 100% effaced. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I knew I wasn't getting sent home :) They monitored me and the baby from about 1am-120am and said that they'd come back in about an hour to check on me.

I asked for a birthing ball and the nurse put a pad over it "just in case" my water decided to break on it's own. (Side note: I've never had this happen with either Connor or Bear's birth.)

Once we were left to ourselves, I got on the birthing ball and the contractions continued to intensify.

Sam is the best birth partner. He found the PERFECT place on my back to push through each contraction. It was awesome!

At 145am my water broke all over the birthing ball, down my legs and into my slippers.....awesome, just awesome. Once my water is broken, baby is never far behind. Well, same thing here.

We all starting yelling when my water broke so my sweet nurse Sandra came in, checked me....7cm dilated...and ran quickly to call my midwife and log the time. That's when the real screaming started....no sooner had they gotten me semi-cleaned up from mass liquid leakage, I felt the urge to push. Sandra basically drops what she's doing, and yells for assistance as my midwife, is not arrived yet.....she got called like 2 min earlier.

About 1 and a half pushes later, Keith Asher Montague is out and in my arms. He was born at 150am. My midwife arrived at 157am. My nurse smiles sweetly at her and says, "Well, we saved the placenta for you to deliver." There was a bit of laughter at that.

Although it was super fast, it was a great birth and I'm so grateful that we left for the hospital when we did.

After having Keith home for a couple days, we love him more and more. He's great at nursing and actually nurses surprisingly fast for an infant of 4 days old. Connor and Bear both love their little brother and always want to help and touch his soft hands and head.

Bear pretty much refuses to call him Keith and only refers to him as "my brudder". Very comical.

More pictures to come.