Cassius Courtney Morden

He's here!!!!  He's finally here!!! 

He's over 2 weeks old now....sorry I'm a little late (I know I know....I never keep up on this blog anyway so I'm sure nobody is surprised).

Fantastic picture of him on his 1 week birthday...he is such a cutie!!

Little fingers :)

He was literally 3 minutes old when this picture was taken!

I just love him :)

He does not seem very happy here...the nurse actually took this picture of him, she did a great job!!

Cash was born at 1:54 PM on Christmas Day 2011.  He was 7 lbs 0 oz and 21 inches long :)

It all started at almost EXACTLY midnight Christmas morning!  I woke up out of a dead sleep and all of a sudden my water broke!  I woke Blake up really quick and ran into the bathroom and called the hospital to let them know we were coming.  Good thing we opened our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve this year!

Blake got everything together, put a garbage bag on the seat of the car and covered that up with towels...let the dogs out and put them in their kennel outside, packed up some changes of clothes and helped me to the car.  Blake did SO well under pressure!  Good thing I have him because I was literally just sitting there in shock the entire time he was putting everything together.  We finally left the house at about 12:20 AM and drove to the hospital.  I was having a few contractions during all of this but they were literally like 15 minutes apart and weren't hurting too bad....YET.

We showed up and got all checked in by a nurse named Mary who is actually from Nevada, Iowa which is crazy because that town is only like 15 minutes away from Ames where I grew up!  It was nice to show up to the hospital in a state where I don't know anybody and have a little bit of familiarity to welcome me.  

We got all checked in and they took us to the room where we just sat there and answered a bunch of questions about my pregnancy and medical history etc.  I told myself during my pregnancy that I wanted to try to have an all natural birth for as long as I could handle the pain.  I asked for some pain medicine about 15 minutes after arriving at the hospital haha. 

Turns out that my water had broken before I was even in actual labor.  I wasn't even dilated 1 centimeter by the time we got all settled in the hospital.  So then came the Pitocin....and then came the real contractions...oh. my. goodness... Once the "post-pitocin" contractions started, I asked for my epidural ASAP.  They were supposed to wait until I was 4 cm dilated but they ended up giving it to me when I was 3 because I was progressing so quickly.  After the epidural I was able to just fall right asleep!  Blake and I woke up around 11:30 and watched Keeping up with the Kardashians for an hour or so when the nurse came back in to check me at about 12:45.  She looked up at us and said "Welp, let's get ready I'm going to call the doctor right now congratulations you're 10 centimeters!!"  Blake and I just looked at each other and couldn't believe it!  We were about to meet our son for the first time!  The epidural made it so I couldn't feel a thing so I was just unbelievably excited to get to pushing and meeting my baby boy!!

The doctor, her name is Dr. Evans, showed up at about 1:00 and said, "Thanks for waiting until I could open  presents with my kids before you were ready to push!"  Then she got all ready and all the nurses came in and got me ready to go!  I couldn't figure out how to push because I was so numb so we had to use a mirror easel so I could figure out what was going on...I wont go into detail about that :)

About 15 or 20 minutes after I started pushing they handed me the most beautiful angel I had ever seen.  I loved him instantly and didn't want to let him go!  He cried like he was supposed to and then passed all of his tests with flying colors!  He was a perfect baby boy and I just love him more and more every single day.

Later that night Blake's parents came and so did Bishop Gillenthin and our friends David and Sarah Carey.  They brought dinner for Blake which was wonderful for him because he didn't get to eat at the hospital, just me!

  

Daddy and baby Cash :) They look like twins!

He was only about 3 hours old when this picture was taken!  Blake is such a proud papa already :)

This picture is mildly embarrassing, but I just would like everyone to see what a contraction feels like...it's written all over my face.  Taken about 5 minutes before my epidural.

Two minutes old!!

There's Dr. Evans!  I met her about 1 minute before I started to push :) She did a wonderful job!

Blake went to Walgreens in the middle of the night to get a snack and brought me back this little teddy bear. He called it my "Push Bear".  So he handed it to me right when we found out that I was going to need to start pushing in a few minutes.

My Labor & Delivery experience was wonderful!  And it's true what they say, once you meet that little bundle of joy all of the pain and discomfort you felt during the entire pregnancy and birth goes away IMMEDIATELY.  I've forgotten all about it and I know that he was totally worth it!  He is the best thing that's ever happened to me and I have honestly never been happier!  I love him so much and I am so grateful that he is loved by so many people as well!  We've received so many cards and letters and phone calls from family and friends it's great to know that he is so cared and thought about.  Thank you all so much!