Sarah, Tom & Brighton: February 2010

Landon Thomas Nelson was born on Wednesday, February 10, at 9:13 am. I was trying my best to hold off labor for Tom to get home from the States, but that didn't happen. I started having labor contractions Tuesday night, but decided to go to sleep in the hopes of making them go away and put off labor a couple more days. I woke up at 3:15ish with contractions again and realized that Landon was ready to come out, whether Daddy was here or not. So, I called the boss in the States and asked him to track down Tom for me. I got ahold of Tom and told him that my contractions had started, but my water hadn't broke, so there's still a chance that this is false labor. I had to go to the hospital though, cause my strept B test had come back positive and so I needed to get a dose of penicilin as early as possible if I was in labor. So, I called my friend Grizellie to come and stay with Brighton and called my friend Taryn to take me to the hospital. By about 5 am, I'm in my bed, hooked up to the monitors to watch the baby's heartbeat and my contractions. They come to check me and inform me that I'm between a 4 and a 5. "So, I guess this means I can't go home, huh?" Nope, I was being admitted and having a baby. An hour later I was at a 7 and ready for my epidural. I got hooked up for the block, but was only given the shot of narcotics cause the lady didn't think I'd need the full epidural since she felt I was going to deliver within the hour. My water still hadn't broke, and they weren't going to break it since they wanted to get as much penicilin in my system as possible. When you test positive for Strept B, they give you two doses of penicilin, 4 hours apart. So, ideally, I'd be in labor for at least 4 hours so that the penicilin is in system and can protect the baby. Yeah, that didn't happen. I got the penicilin at about 7ish and delivered at 9:13. Anyways, so it's about 8 and the midwife was going to come check me again, but I was on the phone with Tom, so she was going to come back. In the meantime, another lady's water broke and so she went to deliver that baby. So, Col Robinson (the midwife) comes back after about another hour and wants to check me. She walks over, and says, "Oh, there's the head. We're ready." My water still hadn't broke, even though I was at a +3! She broke my water, had me lay on my side (a little weird, but it worked) and I pushed once, got the ehad out, pushed again, got one shoulder out, stopped so they could unwrap the cord from his neck (it was around there twice), pushed once more for the other shoulder and one last time and he was out! It was crazy how easy this delivery was! Somebody was definitely making up for the fact that Tom wasn't able to make it home in time.

So, they took Landon (who was nameless at this point cause Tom wasn't there) to the little machine to check him out. They were going to put him on my chest immediately, but since the cord had been wrapped around his neck twice, they needed to check him out first. I called Tom to tell him everything and was then finally able to hold my baby boy! He weighed 7lbs, 1.2 oz and was 20.9 inches long. He was a litte bigger than Brighton, but not much - she was 6lbs 7.1 oz and 18.75 inches long.

We stayed in the hospital for 2 days cause Landon had to be monitored for the Strept B. Luckily, his cultures all came back negative and he was cleared to go home. Tom left Las Vegas at 9:40am on Wednesday and finally made it home to Italy at 7pm on Thursday. Neither of us had slept much for those 2 days, but my ordeal was definitely LESS stressful than his. I'm so thankful he was able to make it home and to be here.