Welcome To The World Little Man!

We are so excited to share with you that Carter William Sroka is here! He was born Saturday morning, June 4, at 9:30am weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces and measuring 20 3/4 inches. We were blessed with a very quick labor and delivery and are so happy to have him here with us.

I woke up early Saturday morning around 4am with some contractions. I timed a few and they were about ten minutes apart. I was hesitant to wake up Nick in case it was just some prelabor (it's hard to believe it's actually happening when it does). But I did wake him and we began timing the contractions with an app on his phone - technology these days...They quickly went to about 7 minutes apart so we got up to begin getting things ready to leave for the hospital. Silly me thought we would have all this time to prepare, so what's the first thing I do? Straighten my hair. Seriously, what is wrong with me, haha. I thought it would take a long time for labor to progress but the contractions quickly skipped from 7 minutes apart to 3 minutes! So we really began rushing to get everything together, realizing we had missed our window of 5-6 minute apart contractions to head to the hospital. We left a little after 6:30am arriving at the hospital close to 7:00.

Since my water hadn't broken they sent me to triage when we got there. They examined me and I was still 4cm but 100% effaced. My contractions were getting stronger and coming about every 2 minutes. However, the on call doctor was not at the hospital yet and they couldn't admit me until they got her approval. In the meantime, I was being poked and prodded inserting my IV and taking some blood work. They had trouble drawing blood and I ended up being stabbed 6 times before they got anything. (However, that was the least of my worries during the contractions!)

I was finally admitted and sent to a labor and delivery room around 8am. When I got there, I went to the restroom and began throwing up (I will not be drinking lemonade again anytime soon, haha). I thought it was kind of funny the first time I got sick during my entire pregnancy was on my delivery day. When I got into bed, they checked me and I was already 7-8cm and my contractions were coming very quickly. By the time one ended, it felt like there was no time for repreive or recovery before another one started :( My water still had not broken at this point and the on call doctor still hadn't arrived to the hospital. By this point I was dilated to 9cm. It was getting worse and worse for me and though I knew I wasn't supposed to push, my body was doing it anyway (I kept apologizing to the nurse for it). We heard the nurse make a phone call from the corner of the room and we could tell she was getting nervous as well that the doctor might not make it. She asked if someone could be really close in case this baby came...

Well, the doctor came at 9:15 and the whole process was much different than we envisioned. First of all, she was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, haha, and there were no scrubs, no stirrups, no bright white sheets, and very few people (just me, nick, the doctor, one nurse, and a 'baby catcher'). The doctor sat down at the end of the bed, broke my water, and immediately said push! I made it through the whole process completely naturally - no pain meds at all. It was extremely painful but I'm really happy I was able to do it on my own (with Nick's support of course). Carter was born just 15 minutes later and was the most perfect little baby.

I did have to get several stitches in two different areas and that process took about 45 minutes...yikes. But Carter was here and healthy and that was all we could think about. We made it to a postpartum room about 2 1/2 hours later and stayed there until Monday afternoon.

We had friends from school and church come to visit and we are so thankful for the support system we have out here. Two families even brought us some food to supplement the scant hospital meals we were sharing :)

Now we are home and Nick's mom and her husband came to join us last night. We are so happy and so in love with this beautiful baby boy the Lord has blessed us with. And we can't wait to show him off to all of you!