Love is... Hey Jude

Tyler and I have a baby. His name was once Festus. Now it is Jude. Officially Jude Edward Atticus Morrow.

Jude - because I love the Beatles. Yes. He is named after the song 'Hey Jude'

Edward - That's my grandpas name. He is a wonderful man. My grandma Maxine (these are my dads parents) got really sick a long time ago with a lot of things, but worst of all, dementia. A long time ago meaning at least 6-7 years ago. He loved her so much that he wouldn't put her in a home because he couldn't stand to loose her. So day in and day out my aunt Lori and him took care of her. He changed her and fought with her to take her meds and fed her and loved her every day. What a remarkable man. She just recently passed away this August.

Atticus - my favorite hero from any book. Atticus Finch from 'To Kill a Mockingbird' kicks trash!

I won't lie though... sometimes Ty and I still call him Festus. Or the stoos. Poor kid.

Having a baby is wonderful. Stressful, but wonderful. Sometimes I cry because I don't know why he is crying but then it is all okay because I get to watch him sleep and he makes the cutest faces.

Tyler and I went to the doctor Thursday September 8th and I had a plan. I just wanted to see how far along I was and then I was going to let Dr. Watts that this was going to be a natural birth because I am a self proclaimed hippie and natural is the way I have always dreamed of having a baby. When he came in he let me know I was at a 4. He gave me the option of being induced or waiting. All at once my mind switched gears and I jumped all over being induced. Really, I have no idea why. I said how about tomorrow and he laughed and said how about Monday. So Monday it was. We phoned the hospital Monday morning and they told us to be there at 7:45. So we showed up, got checked in, and Dr. Watts broke my water and started me on pitocin. I remember the first two hours and the contractions and thinking to myself "this is a freaking cake walk. I can totally do this". Then come noon and I was ready to kill someone. I could not take the pain anymore and... I caved. Poor Tyler tried everything to help me through it but I just could take it. They gave me the epidural when I was at a seven and in 20 minutes I went from a 7-10. Dr. Watts was paged and we were ready to have a baby! While we were waiting for Dr. Watts, Judes heart-rate tanked. They tried moving me around and giving me oxygen but nothing was helping. When Dr. Watts got there we discovered that the cord was wrapped around his neck too tightly for Dr. Watts to loosen with his fingers. He let me know that I could try pushing a few times but if I wasn't making any progress then he would have to try using the forceps. I pushed but no success, so the forceps were brought in and just like that Jude arrived. I didn't realize it then but people from the NICU were in the room and they immediately took Jude to make sure he was okay. The cord was wrapped around his neck and his body pretty tight but they were able to cut it and he was PERFECT! No NICU for my little guy. I ended up needing 20 stitches to fix the damage done by the forceps. After everything had calmed down and everyone left us, my nurse (who rocked!) came back in with some percocet. I initially declined because I didn't want to be drugged with my baby but then she said "trust me, I saw what he did to your vagina... you want the percocet". My little Jude is literally the most beautiful baby on this earth and he was SO chill. He stayed awake, just looking around at everything for hours and hours after he was born.

He had so many visitors and the generosity shown by people was truly overwhelming. We received so many gifts and people were just awesome. We had great nurses and the experience was just awesome.

Now, I may be justifying or making myself feel better about taking the epidural but I kind of feel like Heavenly Father played a little bit of a part in the whole process. Had I not been induced, I would have waited longer and he would have had the cord wrapped around him for longer as he got bigger. Had I not had the epidural, I would not have been able to relax and progress so fast and I also would have felt all 20 of those stitches and the forceps. Like I said, maybe I'm kidding myself but that is how I feel about it.

So... without further ado, welcome JUDE