I’ve built, painted, and DIY’d a lot of projects over the last several years, but none of them compare to this one.  This little guy right here is my greatest project yet.

Aiden Carter Dean was born June 3, 2016 at 4:25am weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces and 18.5 inches long and I am so excited to be sharing the photos from his newborn session.  I have also written about MY BIRTH STORY at the bottom of this post if you care to read.  I know a lot of you are just interested in the pictures so I have spared you some scrolling 🙂

(All photos were taken by Courtney Vickers Photography.  She also did my maternity photos.  For all of you locals, she is fabulous!)

My Birth Story

From the beginning of my pregnancy I knew I would be having a scheduled induction.  Why?  Because I have Factor V Leiden, a genetic blood clotting disorder.  With this condition, doctors prefer you go into labor in a controlled environment, especially if you are wanting an epidural.

My OB tested me for it as soon as I found out I was pregnant since I have a family history of it.  He immediately started me on blood thinner shots.  Yes, I had to give myself a shot every single day for the duration of my pregnancy.  In fact, I’m currently still on them until 8 weeks postpartum.

And this is how my stomach looked from all the shots.

My induction was scheduled for Monday, June 6th.  It was supposed to be earlier but my doctor was not scheduled at the hospital I was delivering at until this day.  My original due date was June 9th so the induction wasn’t actually that early. But I really wasn’t worried about going into labor earlier.  For one, I just didn’t feel it, and for two, women typically go into labor later rather than earlier with their first baby, right?!  Wrong.

It was Thursday June 2nd and my first day off work for maternity leave.  I was having breakfast with my best friend and was feeling great.  (Great is a relative term for someone who’s 39 weeks pregnant.)  I got home around 11am, did a few things around the house, and then laid down for a nap at 1pm.  I woke up at 3pm very uncomfortable, tossing and turning.  By 3:45 it wasn’t any better and the uncomfortable “pain” was only coming every 5 minutes or so.  I texted Ryan and asked if he was still going to be home around 4 and he said yes.  When he came home he immediately noticed something was wrong and asked if I was ok.  I said no, and that I was having this pain every 5 minutes.  He asked if they were contractions but I said I didn’t think so because it’s only Thursday and I’m not supposed to be induced until Monday.  Haha!

It took a lot of arguing, I mean convincing from Ryan, before I finally believed they were actually contractions.  He suggested I call the doctor because I was being so stubborn about it.  I waited until right before they were closing around 5pm and sure enough the Doc told me I needed to go to the hospital.  By this point I was having contractions every 4 minutes.  We grabbed our bags and out the door we went.  I still really couldn’t believe this was actually labor.

We checked in around 6pm and they told me they were going to test and see if my water was broken and if I was dilated at all.  Low and behold I was 4cm dilated and my water was already broken!  How I didn’t realize that is a whole different story.  They admitted me to a room and started me on pain IV’s right away since the contractions were worsening.  It didn’t take long at all before I was 7cm dilated and the pain was very intense to say the least.

Remember the blood thinner shots I was telling you about?  Well they take 12 hours to ware off and they wouldn’t give me an epidural until it had been 12 hours from my last shot.  I took one that morning at 10:45 so unfortunately I waited until 10:45pm to get the epidural.  I labored through quite a bit of pain waiting on that time because whatever IV’s I was on was doing nothing!  Many tears were shed while I waited.  And waited.

I finally received the epidural and all was right in the world again.  I was able to talk again and sleep!  I dilated to 10 cm pretty quickly but it took quite a while before I finally felt the urge to start pushing.  It was 3:05am when I finally started to push.  I pushed for an hour and 20 minutes and at 4:25am he was finally here!

The very first photo of my family of 3

I could stare at this picture of Aiden and Ryan all day.  Completely melts my heart.

I’m loving being his mommy more and more each day.  He is such a good baby and I am one lucky mama.  I can’t wait for him to be my little sidekick project helper.  But for now?  Cuddles.  Lots and lots of cuddles.

Lindsay