BABY!

On Friday July 20th 2007 our little boy was born,

meet Landon Stewart Shumway!!

It was quite the experience bringing this fella into the world. For those interested, let me give you the details... WARNING some parts may be graphic read at your own risk.

Sam and I arrived at University of Utah Hospital around 8am on Friday the 20th. I had been having semi regular contractions and cramping so they put me into the delivery room and started the Pitocin IV. I was dilated 2cm. This is a "learning hospital" so many residents and med students had the pleasure of "helping out". Anyway, an hour after the IV was started the Dr decided to break my water to speed things up, so in went the hook. Sam swears there was over 3 gallons of water, he didn't like this part. Immediately after that, the contractions became HORRIBLY painful. They let and encourage you to get the epidural as soon as you feel any discomfort at this hospital, this is a good thing. So after the 1st REAL contraction, I of course requested the lovely epidural. This was not a good experience, however. The needle went in fine, but as he was threading the catheter up my spine it brushed many nerves along the way, causing "zingers" (like hitting your funny bone) up my entire leg. These "zingers" lasted a long time and felt like I was being electrocuted. I was crying and shaking. After all that drama, the epidural kicked in and I felt great! I quickly went from 2cm to 5cm then stopped progressing. After 4 hours at 5cm the Dr announced I would have to get a C- section. Within 2 min I was in the O.R on the operating table. I was freaking out because the epidural was weak on my right side and I was very afraid I would feel the surgery. Nobody else seemed worried about this, which made me even more afraid. The surgery went well, and although I didn't feel any pain, I could feel major tugging, pushing, pulling and stretching. Sam watched the whole thing. I lost a lot of blood so they gave me some crazy medicine that put me out of it as soon as the baby was delivered. A couple hours later I was finally holding my baby! I remember during the surgery hearing the nurses and doctors saying "he's huge!" as the baby was being pulled out. He seems so tiny to me, but next to the other newborns in the nursery he is pretty big! This earned him the nickname "The Hulk" from Sam's parents. Landon weighed 9lb 8oz, and was 21.5 inches at birth. We are so excited to finally have him here! Now I just need to heal so I can really enjoy him.