When you ask mother's what a contraction feels like they always say, "Oh, you'll know!" For me I didn't. I was at work and started feeling a slight squeezing in my lower abdomen, but it didn't hurt, so I wasn't quite sure. I began keeping track and they were occuring just about every 7 minutes all afternoon so I was pretty sure I was in labor. One of my coworkers said she walked around for two weeks in this state so I didn't want to call Ben and get him all excited in case this wasn't the real thing, but by 2:30 I called to let him know.

I decided to leave work at 4:00 since the contractions started to become slightly uncomfortable and I definitely didn’t want to be stuck in traffic if they started to get closer together. It was our Tuesday dinner night with LaGrand so I cooked dinner and realized the contractions were getting more intense and closer together. By the time dinner was over at 6:00 I thought it would be wise to drop LaGrand off early because I knew it was time to go to the hospital.

While Ben was out I decided to take a bath and our dog Daisy, who never goes into the bathroom, laid right by the tub. It's amazing how animals sense these things. Ben texted me on his way back from Windell and I told him contractions were still 5 minutes apart. He said, “darn” and I said, “what do you mean, It’s Time to Go!” And he said, “oh I thought they had to be 2 minutes apart!!” He had even stopped for gas—ugh! When Ben got home he decided NOW it was time to pack his overnight bag and grab his computer and run around the house etc. etc. etc. Here I was lifting Daisy’s kennel in the car, answer the calls from my sisters and get my overnight bag...We finally got settled in the car and dropped Daisy off at Grandma and Grandpa Turner's house.

It was 8:00 pm when we arrived at Rex Hospital. We parked the car and checked in and before you knew it I was in my labor and delivery room in the hospital gown, hanging onto the bedside through contractions. They had to get the IV fluids in me and check my platelet counts before I could get the epidural. I was only 3 cm dilated, but that was enough. I told them to BRING ON THE DRUGS as soon as they could. The pain was making me nauseous so Ben's job was puke patrol. He would run into the bathroom and dump the barf and come back for more.

Everyone always said that getting an epidural was torture but I felt nothing. Once the anesthesiologist came and put in the epidural the rest of the night was a blur. I don’t even remember Ben leaving to go out to the car to get our stuff. I know they checked me in the middle of the night and I was dilated to a 6 and my contractions had slowed down so Doctor Anya (Tatarchuck) came in and broke my water. By 5:00am it was time to push.

They said it could take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours which made me nervous. With my legs so numb it was hard to even tell if I was doing it right. Ben was still pretty tired and I would look over and he would have his eyes shut, so I told him after each contraction his job was to give me an ice chip. The epidural had made my contractions subside to every 4 minutes so they gave me some Pitocin to speed things up. After 45 minutes of pushing they called in the doctor and she barely had time to get her gloves on and Cohen was born !

We could instantly tell he was another clone of Ben. The dark hair, the Benedict nose, his feet and identical ears. I thought he possibly had my mouth and I was laying in bed the other night and I looked at Ben and realized that was his too.

Cohen caught on to nursing immediately and has been very alert. When the nurses would bring him in to see me I could already tell he could recognize my voice because he would perk up and look around. We think he is just perfect.

What a blessing to have such a healthy and well tempered baby!