OUR NEW ARRIVAL!!

TYSON JOEL KROFF is here! After a long labor, he finally came as a birthday present for Steve! Steve turned 25 on Monday, and TJ was born on his birthday! So they will share that fun day forever! He was born at 3:49 p.m., was 7 lbs and 11 oz, and was 20 1/2 inches long!

Sunday evening I started having small but consistent contractions. I suffered them through the night until a little after 5a.m. (I couldn't sleep through them, so I dozed every now and again and read my book to get through them). I woke Steve up at 5:30 a.m., and we got all set up for them to monitor me & my contractions around 6:30 a.m. After an hour of monitoring, I had dilated from about a 2 1/2 to 3 cm, which was not much. They decided to keep me there though, because his heart rate would drop every time I had a contraction, so they decided something must be stressing him out every time I had a contraction (the guess was that the cord could be around his neck). So although it was scary that this was a small problem, I was happy that they decided to let me stay at the hospital because my contractions were SO painful! I don't know how many times I said to Steve "I hate contractions!"

They set me up in a room, and I got an epidural pretty quick after I was there, which I was SO grateful for! I would definitely recommend getting one and will get it again if I have the option! We had a good experience with the anesthesiologist. After this had set in place, my doctor came in and broke my water to help get my contractions going. He found that there was meconium in it, (which is the baby's first bowel movement). So they had to run alot of fluid through my IV to help clear that out of inside me to help prevent him from swallowing it. After a few hours of just laying here not feeling too much pain, they decided that we were going to have to have a C-Section because my contractions were just not consistent enough to get me fully dilated. (I had been stuck at 5 cm for a few hours, which is longer than they like to see). They tried giving a small dose of petocin to get contractions going, but it really stressed him out heart rate wise, so they had to stop it really quickly.

We had a C-Section scheduled for 3:30 pm, which I had been mentally preparing for all day, because I came into the labor planning on vaginal delivery always. Right before they were going to set me up for the surgery, the nurse said "lets just check again really quick to see how far dilated you are, just for the fun of it." She checked, and I was fully dilated to 10cm! So they made a really fast change of plans and decided to try and deliver me vaginally. The doctor had to give me an episiotomy because in order to deliver him vaginally he would have to be pushed out fast because of the stress he had during contractions. After about 15-20 minutes I pushed him out fully, and he did have the cord wrapped once around his neck. The doctor cut this off right away, and Tyson was good to go!

It was so emotional and so exhilirating to see TJ for the first time. It seemed so surreal! It took a while for Steve & I to fully realize that he was really ours. When they took him to the nursery to get him cleaned up, they did have to put an IV in his hand to put some fluids in him to make up for him having the cord wrapped around his neck. This was nothing serious though, and he is such a healthy and strong baby!

We love our new baby son so much and he is, of course, the cutest baby out there! New parents aren't biased at all, though, right? :) He is wonderful and we love him! Thanks to everyone for your prayers and thoughts all day on Monday and since then! We are sure everything worked out and went so well thanks to all the prayers said in our behalf! We appreciate all the calls, thoughts, visits, and love for us! We can't wait for everyone to meet our newest family member! He is great.