The month of October began to slowly tick by. I inched closer and closer to my due date but felt no sign of baby Braxton making his grand entrance. Wednesday evening, October 11th, we went to our Life Group and had dinner with friends. When we got home, I began scrubbing a spot on our carpet in the bedroom, which turned in to scrubbing spots on the carpet throughout the entire house. (I probably would've began cleaning our neighbor's homes if they would've let me). An hour and a half later, it was past midnight and I finally climbed (or waddled) into bed. 30 minutes later, I was up again with what might be contractions (I wasn't sure) and I appeared to be leaking some fluid of some sort (sorry for the gruesomeness!). I woke Matt up and called the doctor. Doc told us to wait a bit and time the contractions. As we sat there in our bed, our hearts pumping with excitement that maybe this was it, I suddenly became incredibly hungry. So Matt dutifully went to the kitchen and a few minutes later, came back with a pot full of steaming macaroni and cheese. No bowl necessary...the man brought me the entire pot with a spoon; my luxurious, final meal before I became a mom.
A couple of hours later, it became evident that this was the day, and we loaded up and made our way to Vanderbilt Hospital. The morning was filled with a lot of poking and prodding, pitocin and epidurals, and waiting. It was midday on Thursday, October 12th and the doctor had told us with much certainty that it would be Friday before I gave birth. I prayed that this would not be true because I did not want to be in labor on Friday the 13th! Much of the day had been quite boring. They had given me an epidural early on, so I wasn't feeling much, except for the blood pressure cuff continuously squeezing the blood out of my arm every 30 seconds. Late in the afternoon that same day, the nurse checked me and with a slightly alarmed look on her face said "It's time". I watched the flurry of activity and began hyperventilating as our hospital room suddenly came alive with movement and lights. I looked at Matt for encouragement and then yelled at him seconds later for touching my leg (it was numb from the epidural and his touch felt like pins and needles). Poor guy.
Now, for those of you who had horrible labor and delivery experiences, you might want to stop reading here. It was time to push (even though the doctor wasn't in the room yet - pretty sure he was out watching an old Friends episode or something). Matt set up the video camera at a PG13 angle and hit play on the CD player (a worship CD we made for the occasion). A peace came over the room and I began to push. Precisely 21 minutes later on that Thursday in October, Braxton Riley Skar was born - fist first! The doctor barely made it into the room in time to catch him! The nurses placed him on my chest, goop and all, and this screaming little baby boy and I looked at each other for the first time. By the look on his face, he was thinking "What are you gonna do with me??" and at the same time I was thinking "What do I do with you now??"
We called our families to tell them the news. I spoke to my Grandmother and told her "He looks just like Matt!" to which she replied, "Awww, well that's ok."
The first night in the hospital was glorious. I looooved getting up with him in the night, learning how to change his diaper, rocking him and feeding him. He slept a lot and I drifted in and out between sleeping and staring at our precious new life born from our love. I bragged to everyone about what a good sleeper he was, and how he really didn't cry much at all! Such a low-maintenance baby! Then night #2 happened. If we hadn't been on the 4th floor I would've jumped out the window. Why won't he go to sleep? Why is he still crying?? Does he not know that I need a minimum of 8 hours of sleep in order to function properly??? How is Matt sleeping through this???? Little did I know that I would be asking these same questions for the next 4 years...
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