James Levi Coles

Yesterday started for me at 4:00 am. I started having contractions off and on until 10:00 am which is when they started to be more consistent. We called the doctor's office to find out what exactly we should do. Whether we needed to go to the hospital or whether they needed me to go to the office first. The contractions had been really sporadic so we weren't sure what to do. They told us to go to their office so they could make sure I was truly in labor. We left for their office around 1:00 pm and Gary and Kaye picked Brooklyn up to watch her while we were there. We got to the doctor's office and they told me I was dilated to a 5-6 and in labor. They called the hospital to tell them that I was on my way up. The hospital put up a fight saying that they were full and if I wasn't in active labor, I was going to have to walk around until I was. The Nurse Practitioner was shocked that they wanted me to walk around when I was this far into labor. She had the doctor call again and they gave him as much grief as they did her. So we asked if we could go to lunch and then head up to the hospital. She told us that it would be fine and to just make sure I wasn't up and walking around too much. We went to WalMart to get some Tylenol for my headache and the NP called and told me she wanted us to come back to the office in an hour and they would see how far I had progressed and then maybe the hospital wouldn't put up such a fuss about us coming up. We ate lunch and went back up to the office and found out I was at a 7 and really in labor. The doctor's office told the hospital that I was on my way up and that I wasn't going to be able to wait any longer.

I was officially admitted at 2:45 pm and that is when the contractions really got painful and hard. At around 3:40 pm, the contractions got so hard that I was having a hard time not pushing. They got the doctor in and after 10 minutes of pushing we welcomed our little boy into our family!!! I didn't get an epidural and by the end of that 10 minutes I was wishing I had. My legs felt like someone had poured hot acid from my hips down. However, after they put him on my chest, it made all of the pain worth it. The nurse weighed him and we found out our little boy was a whopping 9 pounds. I was completely shocked. I had no inclination that he would be that big seeing as how I wasn't really much bigger with him than I was with Brooklyn. Everyone was surprised that he was so big.

We had quite a few visitors in the hospital yesterday and today. It was a lot of fun to see everyone hold him. We weren't able to leave the hospital until 4 so we had extra time to find a name for him. We were definitely having a very hard time coming up with a name that we both liked. Earlier this morning we decided the first name was going to be James, but we were having a hard time figuring out a middle name. We looked through the top 1000 baby boy names to see if we could find one we both agreed on. The nurse came in and said that she needed the paperwork so we were frantically trying to come up with the last part. We had seen Levi on the list and had been talking about it when the nurse came, so we decided we both liked it and put it on the paperwork and gave it to the nurse.

Then we were on our way home!!! This is James' going home outfit!

Brooklyn was so excited to see him. She continually wanted to give him hugs and kisses. She kept saying "hold you, hold you" which is her way of saying she wants to hold him. We got her a baby doll with a carseat so that she had her own and she thought that was really cool. She really enjoyed opening her gift.