The real deal

Well, just shortly after the "False Alarm" we headed to the hospital for the real deal! I sent my mom home on Monday morning thinking that it wasn't really going to happen any time soon. Well, Monday night, just when I was getting ready for bed about 10:30pm the contractions started in again and this time they were getting much stronger. Finally, about 11:15, I made a call to my mom and hesitantly asked her to come down again because I thought we were probably going to be heading to the hospital again. So, she gladly hopped in her van and drove down. By the time she got here about 12:30, I couldn't talk through contractions and was sure this was the real thing. So, we got up to the labor and delivery floor about 1:00am and they kept us in a triage room (with another laboring woman) hooked up to the monitors to "be sure they were going to keep me" until about 3:30am. Then, they decided they would go ahead and start my IV since I was progressing to about 4-5 cm dilated. Finally, at 4:00am they moved us to a room of our own and Gabe went to the car to get our stuff since we knew we weren't leaving without a baby. From there, things progressed very quickly. By about 5:00am, I was in very hard labor and was progressing quickly and the nurse decided it was time for me to head to the bed because she did not want to be catching a baby. The doctor on call had five women about to deliver so they would not break my water until the doctor was ready, so when the doc got to my room a little after 5:00 am and I was 9 3/4 cm, she called in the troops to get things ready and as soon as she broke my water I was ready to push. I pushed for 12 minutes before Grady made his grand entrance at 5:37am.

He weighed in at 7lbs 7oz and 20 inches long. He came out sporting a FULL head of hair!
It was love at first sight...

for all of us!

Welcome to our family Grady Wilken, we are so glad you are here!
**Grady was picked because we like unique names. Wilken is a combination of both of his Papa's names- William and Ken**