Corey's Birth - The Arrival

As much as I detested the epidural from the time I received it (around 10:15am) until shortly before I started to push, I sure liked it once it was time to push. I thought it was interesting that I'd have gang buster type contractions but only feel them in the form of a small pressure. I don't know the exact time but it must have been around 2:50pm and I was told I was fully effaced and dilated to ten. Everyone took their places shortly after that and I was told it was time to push. It surprised me. I'm not sure why. After all, things had progressed in a rather textbook fashion all day and the next logical step was to actually deliver the baby. Whatever, I'd just to what they told me to do whether if fully registered in my mind or not.

I relied on Dr. Phillips to tell me when to push. It wasn't as foreign to push without being able to feel anything as I had figured it would be. As with Tyler's delivery, which was a natural delivery, the thing about pushing is the fact that you hold your breath. Everyone keeps saying. "Good job; keep pushing." But it's hard to hold your breath like that. Nonetheless, it wasn't that bad. I pushed seven or eight times. (I only pushed five times with Tyler.) I was extatic that I was able to reach down and touch Corey's head while he was coming out. He was born at 3:18pm on a Friday.

There was a moment of concern as Corey wasn't breathing. No crying when he was born and that's a cry you want to hear. Crying is good because it means the baby can breath. The nurses did whatever they had to do and he started to breath shortly after. And basically that's it. He was born. He wasn't a Corey yet. I didn't fully decide on his name until the next day. I still wanted to name him Ryan but I decided to name him Corey because that's what Rick wanted. Rick had put up with a lot during that pregnancy and I wanted to at least give him the name he most wanted.