The Ojuka Family: Naomi's Birth Story

I never got a chance to put this post up right after Naomi was born...but I needed to get it down for our family history. I finally got around to getting it done...

My due date was November 19th...but my doctor was nice enough to schedule an induction for November 18th if I hadn't already gone into labor on my own...which I hadn't.

Wednesday night Ken and I went to bed later than we planned of course and at about 4 am Julius woke up crying and saying "wet, wet". He had leaked out of his diaper. Ken almost always has trouble getting back to sleep and I have for the last two weeks of this pregnancy. So after getting Julius back down we were both wide awake. So we went downstairs, made some herbal tea and watched Sportscenter. We headed back to bed at 6 am but I noticed the hospital had called while we were downstairs and left a message telling us we could come in to be induced at 6:00 am. We called them back and told them I wanted to shower and we'd be in by 7:30.

Got to the hospital, checked in and realized I hadn't eaten anything since dinner...and I was STARVING. So we grabbed a little something at the hospital and by 9 am they had started the "contraction juice" as Ken called it. I had mild contractions for a few hours, then Dr. Savage showed up and broke my water. Contractions got way worse almost immediately so we called for the epidural. It took him about 20 minutes to get to me so I was only REALLY uncomfortable for about that long.

Once that kicked in we both rested for a bit.

But I was STARVING! I don't remember ever being so hungry. I asked the nurse if I could have food. She said "No, only ice chips." So when she left I told Ken to look up why you can't eat when you're in labor. I wanted to know if it was a good reason.

The first thing he read was that some doctors say it's ok and some say it's not. That didn't sound life-threatening so I made Ken give me 4 chewy sprees (the candy).

Then I decided I probably shouldn't eat anything else. Ken went and got some lunch and every time I asked him what he had he told me "ice chips" (How nice of him.). I was making a mental list of all the places I would send Ken to get me food when I could eat. But once Naomi was born I forgot about the list and just enjoyed all the delicious hospital food. That's how hungry I was...I really thought it was delicious.

It took about 30 minutes once Dr. Savage showed up and she was here.

Her first photo.

She was 7lbs 19 inches and adorable.

We had a few names on our list (Naomi had been the favorite for a few months) but as soon as she was born we both said "Naomi". No question.

I asked my good friend Lora to come to the hospital and take some pictures for us. She took some of us in the delivery room just minutes after Naomi was born then she went down to the nursery and took pictures while they were cleaning her up. Of course she couldn't go inside the nursery so she had to take them through the window...you'd never know that...she got incredible shots! She's fantastic and I just LOVE the pictures she took. Here they are...

{She took more than this, I narrowed it down for the blog...but I still included a lot because I think they are so cute!}