Lincoln Timothy Smith

It all started Thursday night (June 4) at about 7:30 p.m. Actually it all started about nine months ago, but we'll skip that bit and fast forward to the part you care about. 

I had a couple softball games starting at 8 o'clock that night, but around 7:30 Shantel started to feel sick and have some cramps so she stayed home. I offered to stay with her but she insisted she was fine and that I should go to my games. I did, but kept checking my phone between innings to make sure she didn't need me. 

I got home shortly after 10, and Shantel still wasn't feeling great, and then at 10:40 pm she discovered what a real contraction feels like. It didn't seem fun. In spite of that, Shantel decided to try and get some sleep and we finally went to bed around 11:30. 

Orem Community Hospital is a very serene place at 1 a.m.

But that didn't last long. Shantel was awakened at 12:22 with more contractions. A few minutes later she went into the bathroom and at about 12:40 a.m. I woke up when I heard the bathroom door open, and Shantel told me that her contractions were about five minutes apart. For about 15 minutes we sat there trying to decide if we should go to the hospital yet because the contractions weren't lasting for a full minute and they hadn't been five minutes apart for an hour yet. But fortunately for us we got our answer at 12:56 when her water broke! We jumped up and grabbed everything we needed and were out the door in just a couple minutes!

We arrived at the hospital at about 1:10 a.m. And checked in while Shan dripped uncontrollably all over the floor (sorry, that's kind of gross, but it was also kind of funny). 

Anna was the initial nurse who helped us and checked the water break to be sure it was actually amniotic fluid that was leaking (which made us laugh because it was either that or Shantel needed to be re-potty trained which we were pretty confident wasn't the case). After that we got to our room and we were introduced to Corrina, the nurse who would be with us until 6 a.m. 

Room 117

Shantel was dilated to four centimeters and they said that since this was our first we could likely expect to dilate at a centimeter an hour (so six hours of dilating and contractions) and then one to three hours of pushing. Our doctor wasn't on call that night and wouldn't be there until about 7 a.m. which really was going to work out perfectly since we were told to expect to have the baby between 8 and 10 a.m. at that expected rate. 

Around 3 a.m. Shantel decided she was ready for an epidural as the contractions were getting more painful. Ryan, the epidural guy, came and stuck that giant needle in her back, but then about 30 minutes later the pain still hadn't gone down so he came back and gave her an extra dose, which did work, hallelujah! Those contractions did not look fun in the slightest. 

After all the tests and Shan getting hooked up to all the right monitors with all the right drugs, Corrina said she had some papers to fill out with us and things she had to go over. She told us that she would just go over one or two things on her list and finish the rest later so that we could get some sleep. She sat down and barely started when two other nurses rushed in. 

They could see the heart monitor placed over the baby and noticed it was no longer getting a reading, which means the baby had moved downward and was on his way out. That wasn't supposed to happen until at least 7:30 that morning, but here we were at about 4:25 and Shantel was fully dilated and our baby was getting ready to come out! And so we (and by "we" I mostly mean Shantel) braced ourselves for one to three hours of pushing. 

Shantel pushed with one contraction, and then with a second contraction a minute later the nurse (Anna) turned to me while I was holding Shantel's leg and said "There's your baby's head. Do you want to see it?" "I don't know, do I?" I decided to take a quick glance and got my first glimpse of our little baby!

Then Shantel pushed one more time with the next contraction, and apparently she's a natural at this because the nurses had to stop her before the baby came flying out without the doctor there to help. So everything paused for about five minutes while we waited for the doctor to get there, our baby's head halfway out already.

Dr. Wayne Young, the on call doctor that night, arrived and with one more push our little baby boy was born into the world. 

Lincoln Timothy Smith was born at 4:40 a.m. on June 5, 2015. He was 20.5 inches long and weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces.

The first family photo!

If only that wall wasn't in the way of my shot...

His first bed! Albeit a very temporary one.

Just hammin' it up for the camera.

So content to be with Mom!

And I think he looks even more like me now, at almost a month old.

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A few quick notes for the sake of memory:

It didn't take long to discover that he's a smart kid! Or a really hungry kid that learned quickly out of desperation. But probably both! Shantel fed him for the first time at 5:35 that morning and he latched on first try, which apparently doesn't always happen. He ate for about 30 minutes before burping and switching sides, where he once again latched on almost immediately.

As expected, Lincoln's weight dropped down to 7 pounds even by bed time. That weight was the same in the morning, and was down to 6 pounds 13 ounces when we left the hospital.

They had a nourishment closet for husbands that had an unlimited supply of chocolate milk, pudding, jello, popcorn, cereal, etc. It was awesome.

Denise was our nurse during that first day until Corrina came back for the night shift. (Those two were definitely our favorites from our time there, with Debbi a close third). Jana was very briefly assigned to us Saturday morning but quickly switched out due to an influx of patients (I only met her when she came to introduce the new nurse because I had been sleeping). Debbi was our nurse on Saturday during the day, and then Andrea was our final nurse that sent us off when we went home, including helping us get Lincoln in his carseat for the first time. We left the hospital at 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 6.

In his carseat and ready to go home!

It was a rainy day, but a perfect day!